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More than 5,000 “personally identifiable” records of Virginia veterans were included in boxes of paperwork discovered Sept. 29 in a storage unit leased by a fired Virginia Department of Veterans Services employee.

The records included nearly 700 benefit claims that went unfiled, were filed late or were missing key documents.

After an exhaustive, seven-week examination of 20 to 30 boxes discovered in the former employee’s storage unit in Dinwiddie County, Veterans Service officials are now working to repair the damage that affected hundreds of veterans who filed claims.

With assistance from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which supplied seven full-time employees, the state Veterans Services agency worked 10 hours a day, six days a week since the trove of documents was found to sort through and preserve relevant records. They have been electronically scanned and uploaded into the VA’s system to ensure proper filing, said Thomas Herthel, the Veterans Services’ director of benefits.

“This was really a Herculean effort, and from a teamwork standpoint, it worked exactly the way that you would want it to work — especially in an unfortunate situation like this,” Herthel said. “The VA really came through and did an incredible job helping us out.”