U.S. Sen. Jon Tester called Collins Tuesday night, and that was just the beginning.

“I didn’t know how big it was until my son brought tweets from Kamala Harris and senators up on his phone,” Collins said. “This is bigger than I thought.”

Collins has a harrowing tale about how he arrived in Helena, and one that has certainly changed the magnitude of his win.

A former Liberian refugee, Collins lived through a bloody civil war, fleeing to Ghana, coming back to Liberia and then being forced to flee again to Cote d’Ivoire before coming to the United States. He lost two younger brothers in the conflict, one killed by rebels and one dead at the hands of government soldiers. He waited three days in line to get on a cargo ship to Ghana with his wife and when they disembarked, Collins says they were dying of starvation.

“I weighed 97 pounds,” he said in a tight voice. His pregnant wife came back to Helena to attend Carroll College on a student visa and Collins joined her on a refugee visa two years and seven months later at 2 p.m. on Oct. 15, when he got to see his daughter for the very first time.

“I came from a place where the average temperature was 80 degrees, and I come here and it’s 33 degrees and people are wearing shorts,” Collins said, shaking his head.