AUGUSTA, Ga. — Amid the darkness brought on by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Georgia, a crew of linemen helped light up one 5-year-old boy.
Augusta was particularly hard-hit by Helene, with widespread power loss afflicting the city and surrounding area in the days that followed the storm.
For linemen, the job was the bring the light back. WRDW, the NBC affiliate in Augusta, reports how a crew from O'Bar Electric in Fort Worth, Texas, helped do that -- and in the process lit up Ryan Dial, honorarily making him one of their own.
The 5-year-old, who has special needs, is "very sensory-oriented and needs everything to be routine," his mother Maura Dial told WRDW. That made the impact from Helene especially hard.
Devin Rockholt, the general foreman for the crew, helped ease Ryan's difficult time -- surprising the boy with an O'Bar Electric t-shirt and his own hard hat. Ryan even got to sit in the driver's seat of the crew's bucket truck.
Rockholt himself had a sister with special needs, who he lost when she was just four years old.
"Around the same age as him," he said, referring to Ryan. "So I've always -- I actually volunteer for the special Olympics, I do a lot of stuff like that."
Rockholt's crew restored the light for Ryan and his family -- and in the process gave him an experience he'll never forget.
Ryan now calls the linemen "light-lights," his mom Maura said.
"Because they turned on our lights, and they were lights."