“I got there at 7:30 in the morning, thinking I was going to be one of the first ones,” Vold said. “Yeah right. The whole parking lot was full of people waiting in their cars for them to come out with the forms.”

“As more people showed up, they couldn’t control it,” he added. “It became a nasty mob. People were skipping straight to the front. Everybody was crushing up against each other, on top of each other and screaming at each other.”

(Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez admitted to the Miami New Times that his administration was caught off guard: “I’m not gonna lie: We were not expecting people there at 7 a.m. The need was overwhelming, even more than what I expected. We have everything under control now.”)

Even though he was wearing a mask and gloves, he felt exposed, Vold said. “There was no social distancing,” he said. “I had old ladies holding on to my arms so they wouldn’t fall down. Some people didn’t have masks. If one person had it, everybody got it.”