Adding Insult To Injury

Monday, May 15th 2006, 2:27 pm

By: News On 6

Families with sick children are being targeted as burglary victims in Tulsa. Several families staying at the Ronald McDonald house near Saint Francis Hospital have had their cars broken into.

News on 6 reporter Jennifer Loren talked with one of those families and has details.

Kim and Aaron Stutzman live almost 30 miles from Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa. They have a newborn in intensive care there. He was born 8 weeks premature.

They say the past two weeks have been difficult to say the least. "Itâ€™s just been, you can't imagine the stress." But Kim and her husband say there has been one saving grace through their hardship, the Ronald McDonald House. Just down from the hospital, itâ€™s like a free hotel for parents with hospitalized children. "Itâ€™s just been a real blessing. The people are extremely nice here and really take care of us."

But the Ronald McDonald house has been plagued with a problem. Thieves keep breaking into cars in their parking lot, including Kim and Aaron's. "He just walked out to his truck and looked and there was glass all over the ground, all on the inside of his truck."

The director at the Ronald McDonald House, Glenda Love acknowledges that itâ€™s a huge problem. She says cars are being broken into here on a weekly basis. "This is a terrible thing to happen at a place like the Ronald McDonald House where we're trying to help people and aid them in a time of crisis."

She says they have filed police reports, but the break-ins haven't slowed down. She says they'll have to raise more money to hire a security guard. Maybe then they can keep families like this one, families already in crisis, from becoming burglary victims to boot. Kim Stutzman: "That's the most low-down thing anybody could ever do is to kick somebody while they're down. Especially when itâ€™s their child."

Tulsa Police say they've seen a rise in break-ins, not only at the Ronald McDonald House, but all around the LaFortune Park area. The Ronald McDonald House runs solely on private donations. In order to hire a security guard, they'll need more.