Tags:

A Florida Chick-fil-A employee is being hailed as a hero after deputies said he stopped a carjacking outside the fast food restaurant.

Okaloosa County deputies said the young employee rushed outside the Fort Walton Beach area restaurant to help a screaming woman holding a baby after a man grabbed her keys and tried to take her car.

Investigators said the woman was getting the baby out of her car when a man identified as William Branch walked up to her wielding a stick and demanded her keys.

Branch then grabbed the car keys from the waistband of the woman’s pants, opened her car door and got inside the car, investigators said.

When the woman began screaming for help, deputies said the Chick-fil-A employee ran to intervene.

Deputies said Branch punched the employee in the face but the employee was not seriously injured.

The employee told deputies that Branch had been involved in another incident shortly before the carjacking attempt.