Local Mohawk Industries Team Makes Gowns Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

DALTON, Ga. (WDEF) – They’re a team filling a void amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“These ladies and the guys, they’re used to sewing and putting things together, but there’s no project that they can’t do. We’ve tackled many things, but this is one of the things that we’re the most proud of,” Mohawk Sewing Department Manager Darlene Pasley said.

At the Mohawk facility on Antioch Road they normally manufacture bath mats and residential carpet, but now they’re taking on a new focus: making gowns for doctors and nurses.

“We thought originally we might make 10 or 20 gowns for these guys and it turned out we made 10 the first day. We made 50 the second day. We made 100 the third day and it’s grown into now how can we help out at anyway we can,” Mohawk Home Senior Vice President of Product and Operations Bart Hill said.

Mohawk Industries and Fabric Sources International have combined forces to make the gowns.

Fabric Sources started to create the medical grade material needed for the protective wear after hearing that there was a need.

“We thought, we need to find a way to take care of these folks on the front line. These are friends of ours. These are also people who if any of us contract this virus or any of our loved ones, we’re going to count on these people and if they’re not protected and they’re not there to serve us, then we’ve got an even bigger crisis,” Fabric Sources International President Chris Simuro said.

Both companies knew they wanted to produce something to help the medical supplies shortages.

So, in about a week’s time, the two companies came together, formed a team and quickly began manufacturing the gowns.

“We got a gown and literally they gave me a gown and we reversed engineered it and we were able to separate it. Cut it to pieces. Automate it. Create an assembly line with this entire team back here. Everyone did a great job, but we were able to do that in such a short amount of time,” Mohawk Home Regional Engineering Manager Earl Nichols said.

“We’re not looking at this to try to get any type of glory. We just want to make sure that the people on the front lines, the doctors and nurses have what they need to fight this pandemic, but we just want to do what we can and what we can for the community,” Nichols said.

“There’s a lot of love that’s going into these gowns,” Pasley said.

The team is scaling up production every day.

They’re even looking at putting in another line and hope to turn 1,000 gowns or more a day.

Simuro said that just on Thursday a local hospital ordered over 15,000 of the gowns and the Emory University Hospital System has ordered over 125,000 gowns that they’ll need in the next few weeks.

Around 1,000 of the gowns are being donated to Hamilton Medical Center.