Alabama's first coronavirus vaccine doses administered

- and throughout the evening.

We start at 4 with waay 31's megan reyna in limestone county - where front line workers rolled up their sleeves just hours ago.

Megan?

It was a turning point inside this hospital earlier this afternoon... as a doctor inside became one of the first people in our state to become vaccinated.

Nats since march -- doctor matt hansberd has been waiting for this moment.

A covid-19 vaccination.

Hanserd says:"there's a lot of sense of relief."

Nats claping hanserd receiving his first dose of pfizer's vaccine.

Nearly 2-thousand of them were shipped to athens limestone hospital.

Hansberd says:" i know we have several hard months ahead of here at the hospital to take care of people with covid but i will say that after i got the vaccine, i felt very relieved."

Those directly treating covid patients will receive the vaccine first.

Hansberg has been in charge of the covid response team here.

He's hopeful this will help relieve the staffing issues they've been experiencing.

Hanserd says: "we'll end up working for just several, several, weeks on end and with as many patients as we're seeing, that's just not something that is good for anybody," athens limestone hospital is one of the first hospitals to receive a shipment of vaccines.

That's because it has the freezer capability.

The chief nursing officer and interim president -- traci collins says more than 50 percent of their employees said they would get vaccinated.

Collins says:"seeing that they're willing to get it and be the first one in line, it gives me comfort and it lets me know, hey these guys are super smart, they study science, they study research and if they think it's safe for them, they are not going to do anything to jeopardize themselves that would be detrimental to them, so i honestly trust them with my life."

For hanserd -- he says while this has been an expedited process -- he trusting the science.

Hanserd says: "once it gets fda approval, having it in hospitals in two days, and then having it in people's arms 24 hours after that, that's quite the process, and i can't take away from any of that.

I mean there are so many people that are working on this that aren't me, that aren't frontline healthcare workers and we're thankful for all those people."

In the next few days -- athens limestone will set up a traveling morgue to administer vaccines to decatur-morgan and hellen keller hospital.

All of these hospitals are apart of the huntsville hospital system.