WP;
If they were new when they did this and they are still this way...
My Answer is offer the guy $1.00 for the lot, you might have the possibility of bringing back 1/2 of them more than likely none of them. having the metal bar on them has wasted them.
RANT!! what a waste, I work in the medical business and there was no reason to ruin these by doing this.
If these are the Units I think they are, they did not even need to do this as the equipment would've discharged the Batts themselves, that is/was one of the problems with this type of equipment!!
End of RANT
One thing you might get to do is go see the batts, and take a small meter, remove the bar and test them any kind of volatge swing above 5Vdc will tell you that one is saveable, you could also do a Ohm test that'll tell you how ruined these may be.
SLAs have a certain internal resistance , if these were stored with the bar on them they should then read near open circuit with the bar removed.
Get a chance, smack the guy who ruined these:--)
However, if they have the motors for these unit there too, then offer to take the batts if they will let you have the motors, they will either be 180Vdc 30Amp PMs or 220V 3 phase units.
There were some that were 120V single phase but only saw 2 in 10 years..
Hoope this helps
Bruce S