When a 10-year-old who can't walk was unsure how she'd attend a class hiking trip, a teacher offered a solution: He'd carry her.

Ryan Neighbors has spina bifida and is paralyzed from the waist down. She uses a wheelchair to get around. When Ryan’s mother, Shelly King, learned about a class trip to the Falls of the Ohio State Park, she worried her daughter would miss out.

King said she explored the possibility of carrying Ryan in a special backpack, then one of the teachers of Tully Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky, stepped up.

Jim Freeman – who isn't Ryan's teacher and who hadn't interacted much with the 10-year-old, according to King – offered to carry Ryan for the day. King said the offer from Freeman was "out of the blue."

"That's how wonderful this man is," King said in a phone interview with USA TODAY.

She said, "We've never really talked. I didn't know his first name before he offered to do this."

Freeman carried Ryan, who, according to her mother, is roughly 55 pounds, while traversing boulders and fossil beds.

"It melted my heart," King said.

King posted pictures of Freeman carrying Ryan to Facebook. The photos have been shared more than 1,000 times.

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King said her daughter, who had to miss a field trip last year, will never forget the kindness the teacher showed her.

“When I got to see the fossils and stuff, I was like, 'Wow, that's like, really cool. I haven't gotten to see that before,' ” Ryan said in an interview with WLKY-TV in Louisville.

Freeman told the TV station he wasn't looking for recognition. Tully Elementary is part of Jefferson County Public Schools.

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“All the teachers here at Tully and JCPS, they work harder than most people realize,” Freeman told WLKY.

King said she never expected the photos to reach as far as they have.

"To anybody else who is in a wheelchair, nothing should stop you ... and you shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. There are good people out there who want to help you," she said.

Contributing: Ashley May