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Free Acupuncture Offered For Residents Who Live Near Chelsea Bombing Site

By Maya Rajamani | September 22, 2016 2:17pm
 Olo Acupuncture's community acupuncture room.
Olo Acupuncture's community acupuncture room.
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Kelly Turso

CHELSEA — An acupuncture clinic down the street from the site of the Chelsea bombing is offering free treatments to neighbors, first responders and anyone else affected by the incident.

Olo Acupuncture at 119 W. 23rd St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, will provide auricular acupuncture treatments, or ear treatments, on a first-come, first-served basis through the end of the month, co-founder and licensed acupuncturist Yuka Hagiwara said.

Her 10th-floor clinic wasn’t directly damaged by the explosion, but the building’s main glass door at street level was shattered by the blast, she said.

When Hagiwara returned to work on Monday — through a back entrance on West 24th Street — first responders and people returning to the block were “really on edge,” she said.

“We wanted to help take the edge off. And the nature of our clinic allows for lots of people to be resting together at once, so it’s easy for us to kind of sneak people in.”

Hagiwara said the ear treatment offered by the clinic has been proven to relieve trauma and bring about a lighter mood and relief from pain, insomnia and depression.

Trauma and emotions “can take hold in your body and show up in weird ways in the future,” she said.

“Acupuncture has increasingly been used — even by the military — to help with PTSD. We really felt called to just put the word out there that we’re doing this, to help people.”

Hagiwara’s clinic, which has been on the block for nearly six years, closed a few hours before the bomb went off Saturday evening.

While the acupuncturist was relieved to learn her staff and patients weren’t in the area during the explosion, the proximity of her business to the blast site was “scary,” she said

“We walk by there twice a day, almost every day, so it’s traumatizing, really, for lack of a better word."

The clinic doesn’t have strict guidelines dictating who can receive the free walk-in treatments, Hagiwara noted.

“Really, it’s just [for] people who feel like they need the help,” she said. “We want to be there for them.”