AC unit replaced at beach clinic

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - Someone stole the air conditioning unit from the Virginia Beach Free Health Clinic on Holland Road last week. So with the summer heat, the patients and employees were really sweating it out.

Thankfully, a man saw their story on WAVY News 10  and stepped up to help the clinic. Thomas Yarina with A.C. Plumbing, INC. helped the clinic find a supplier - Johnstone Supply - to donate a new unit. Gillispie Mechanical LLC assisted with the installation.

The clinic was closed this weekend. Monday morning, Executive Director Susan Hellstrom came in to open up the office and noticed the building was not cooling down. She went outside to check on the air conditioning unit and discovered, to her surprise, that it was gone.

Even with several fans running and most of the lights turned off, the temperatures still hung in the mid-to-upper 80s inside the free clinic Monday morning.

Hellstrom said, "It seems almost like a cruel joke, that someone would target the uninsured, especially with this heat. Yesterday was 105. How are we going to function and make people sit in the waiting room without any AC, plus the volunteers, how do we expect them to work in this kind of heat?"

The patients realize the toll this theft will take on a free clinic that runs completely on donations and grants.

Carla Stoakely, a patient at the clinic said, "Not everyone is fortunate enough to have insurance, so this is a big hurt for this little organization."

While the thief at the clinic stole the entire ac unit, the crooks who hit a small strip of businesses on North Great Neck Road had something different in mind. They pillaged six AC units, ripping them to shreds only to steal the copper coils so they can sell them. A chiropractor with an office there was the first to discover the line of AC skeletons in back of the building Monday morning.

"You can't believe someone would ruin units that cost thousands of dollars just for 50 bucks in copper," said Dr. T. Roy Jarrett of Jarret Chiropractic.