Two neighbors with health concerns who recently met online helped each other get the coronavirus vaccine, as one volunteered to give her appointment to her elderly neighbor.
Emily Johnson is a grandmother in Austin, Texas, who was in need of open heart surgery, but her doctor told her she should have one vaccination before the procedure, ABC News reported Wednesday.
Johnson spent hours on the phone trying to set up an appointment but eventually reached out to neighbors on the Nextdoor app for help.
“Hello Neighbors! I am a 68-yr-old female facing open heart surgery,” she wrote on January 7.
“My doctors here in Austin have no access to the vaccine, so I have been spending up to an hour each morning, putting my name on lists and making dozens of phone calls. Has anyone out there heard anything or have a suggestion to make?” Johnson asked.
When neighbor Christy Lewis read the post, she told Johnson she could have her appointment.
“You need this much more than I do. If you can make this appointment, it’s yours,” Lewis said.
“I was both stunned and obviously elated,” Johnson recalled, adding, “I couldn’t believe that someone would be giving such a coveted thing to a complete stranger.”
Lewis, who has an autoimmune disease and considered high-risk, and Johnson made plans to go to the appointment together.
According to the women, once the supervisor heard their story they both received the vaccination.
Johnson said she was overwhelmed by Lewis’s kind gesture.
“What I realized through all this is that even though we hear all kinds of sad stories happening in our country, there are truly wonderful people amongst us committing incredible acts of kindness,” she noted.
At least 1,100 members of the Texas National Guard will administer vaccines to homebound seniors in rural and isolated areas of the state to get the majority of residents 65 and older vaccinated against the coronavirus, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday.
“The good news is there’s going to be a record amount of vaccines available across Texas this week with increasing numbers going forward,” the governor said.
“We’re going to have the capability to … apply vaccines very, very quickly for our seniors as well as additional populations, so that we increasingly, week by week, will be increasing the immunity that Texans have,” he concluded.