Jeremy Fischer said he and Trey Thompson, both EMTs with Haynes Ambulance, stopped by McDonalds Saturday night to get a meal but Fischer said employees told them they would not be served.

“Pretty much what happened was we went up there and the outside drive-through lane was closed, and that’s the only one we can fit through with the ambulance,” Fischer said. “So we went inside and an employee told us that they were closed. So I asked if we could walk around to the window and pay for our food and they told us multiple times that they couldn’t serve us.”

Fischer posted to Facebook shortly after the incident, writing “Shout out to Troy McDonalds for refusing to serve first responders!”

Fischer says the post went “almost viral” with 416 shares in under 48 hours and several comments, including people calling for a boycott of the restaurant.

Gerry Murphy, owner of the local restaurant, responded Monday in a statement.

“McDonald’s welcomes all customers, including first responders and public servants,” Murphy said. “While we are looking into this matter further, it appears to be a miscommunication. Nevertheless, these allegations are not representative of our values at McDonald’s and this has been reinforced with our employees.”

Fischer said he has talked with Murphy and that management is doing “everything in their power to “correct the problem.”

“We were very assured that it is a 24-hour location and at no time should service have been denied and it should not have been closed,” Fischer said. “And if it was closed for some reason, the door should have been locked.”

Fischer said he never intended for the post to go viral and is not asking for people to boycott McDonalds.

“A lot of people misconstrued stuff,” Fischer said. “It’s not the company as a whole, it was a few bad apples that worked there …

“We didn’t expect a discount, we just wanted to eat like everybody else. I just posted that as a warning to people of how we were treated there. We just expect the same customer service everyone else is receiving. There have been multiple occasions when this has happened to other crew members and now we have let management know about it.”

Murphy did not say whether any employees were fired or suspended due to the incident.