SEATTLE (AP) – Seattle hospitals sent COVID-19 vaccines to hundreds of people in the middle of the night after a freezer in which they were stored failed.
It’s not clear what caused the freezer breakdown Thursday night, but the UW Medical Center campuses in Northwest and Montlake and the Swedish Medical Center received more than 1,300 doses to be used before expiring at 5:30 a.m. on Friday , The Seattle Times reported..
News of the unexpected doses spread on social media, and a line of hopeful vaccine recipients wriggled out the door of the clinic and through a parking lot at UW Medical Center-Northwest. One hundred people were lined up in the clinic of the Swedish Medical Center at Seattle University. The hospital tweeted at 11:59 pm that it had 588 doses to dispense, and at 12:30 pm all appointment schedules were occupied.
At the UW Medical Center-Northwest, Assistant Clerk Jenny Brackett walked past the crowd and asked if anyone was over 65. Many of those who showed up were too young and healthy to qualify for Washington State’s current priority ratings for the distribution of vaccines. Brackett said the hospital was doing its best to vaccinate those who qualified, but its main goal was to get it in its arms and avoid waste.
Anyone who received a first injection on Thursday night will also receive the second injection in the two-dose regimen, regardless of age, said Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association.
A woman picked from the crowd at UW Medical Center-Northwest, Tyson Greer, 77, said she’d been waking up at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. for more than a week looking for coveted vaccination appointments online. She finally got an injection at 1am from the head nurse Keri Nasenbeny.
Many of the vaccination clinic employees had been on the job since 7:00 a.m. Thursday, Nasenbeny said.
When she received word of the freezer malfunction, she called several nurses, who in turn recruited pharmacists and other volunteers. A Seattle firefighter showed up out of nowhere to help, and a hospital employee’s friend helped manage the queue.
Those who scored the vaccine were grateful. Sarah Leyden, 57, was told the photos were available from her wife, a hairdresser, who heard from a client who is a nurse.
“I was just lucky,” said Leyden.