A Clemson University student is breathing a deep sigh of relief today after a weekslong effort to rescue her grandmother, who was stuck in Ukraine, finally succeeded.

“Grandma is doing well, everyone’s happy. I was able to facetime her and we all cried, it was amazing,” said Brooke Prince on NewsNation’s “Morning In America” Monday .

After watching Russian troops invade Ukraine, Prince knew she had to get her 83-year-old grandmother Helena out of the country. There was just one problem: Prince was in the U.S. at school in South Carolina and Helena was in the besieged Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

In a desperate attempt to find someone who could help, Prince took to social media and shared her grandmother’s story. That’s when Jack and Karolina Connolly, a South Carolina couple who had previously lived in Ukraine, reached out to see what they could do.

“We both lived in Kyiv so we had connections directly on the ground. Some of our friends were actively evacuating people so we figured we’d give it a shot and see if we can coordinate getting the grandma to safety,” said Jack Connolly.

So the Connollys started making calls, reaching out to anyone and everyone they knew in the area who might be willing to evacuate Helena.

The rescue attempt would not be easy, Helena was in an area surrounded by Russian troops and the nearby bridge had been completely destroyed. Anyone willing to take on the mission would be putting their own life at risk.

“It was extremely hard to find someone who would risk his own life to go there and get her,” said Karolina Connolly, who grew up in Ukraine.

But the Connollys did find someone; a man named Vitaly picked up Helena from the center of Kyiv and drove her to safety in Western Ukraine. From there, Vitaly’s wife took the grandmother to the Slovakian border where she reconnected with family who came from the U.S. to meet her.

When asked how she felt after hearing the good news, Prince said she “cried for hours,” a mix of happiness and relief.

Grandmother Helena joins a growing list of people fleeing Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion, as many as 3 million people have left the country, according to the United Nations.