(CNN) – When the queue at a coronavirus vaccination clinic in South Carolina was blocked, forcing people to wait in their cars for hours on end, the city’s mayor decided to call a professional for help – a Chick-fil manager.
Local hospitals in Mount Pleasant opened the clinic on Jan. 22 to residents eligible for the first shots of the covid-19 vaccine. But shortly after the drive-thru was opened, the computer system handling the records shut down, leaving hundreds of people waiting in heavy traffic.
That’s when Jerry Walkowiak, the manager of a nearby Chick-fil-A, stepped in to save the day.
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“When I found out, I called Jerry and asked if he would come and help us,” Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie told CNN. ‘After looking at it, he said,’ There is your problem. It’s been dammed because you have a person registering people. Then he showed us how to do it right.
Chic Fil A manager Jerry Walkowiak brings his professional drive thru experience to assist our vaccination program in Mt Pleasant today. Call the pros if you need help. pic.twitter.com/63RvcVR8KJ
– Will Haynie (@willhaynie) January 22, 2021
With the help of a few extra volunteers, the Chick-fil-A manager transformed the messy traffic jam into a smooth operation, reducing the wait time to just 15 minutes.
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More than 1,000 people received the vaccine that day, Haynie said. When everyone returns for their second dose on February 12, Walkowiak returns to help run the drive-thru.
“At Chick-fil-A, we want to be the most caring company in the world, and when Mayor Haynie asked us to go, we checked out his drive-thru system,” Walkowiak told WCBD news channel.
“We saw a little glitch in their system and we needed more people, so we gathered some of Rotary’s great volunteers and we went over and we were able to speed up the registration part.”
According to data released Saturday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 29 million doses of covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States.
While the United States has a long way to go before the pandemic ends, Haynie hopes her city’s experience will encourage others to get vaccinated and help with vaccination efforts.
“Jerry got a call and dropped everything because he knows vaccination is a tipping point,” Haynie said. “This is how the covid will see the light at the end of the long tunnel.”