Martial Arts Champion Fights the Good Fight

After losing his leg to gang violence, Lennie Orrell turned to martial arts to create a positive future.

When Mableton’s Green Room Martial Arts sent a team to the Tony Young All Star Nationals on March 5, Lennie Orrell was a featured competitor. Green Room’s owner, Charles Klughart, recruited Orrell because he thought he had the makings of a champion. Orrell did not disappoint, placing first in board-breaking and second in sparring. What makes this achievement especially remarkable is that Orell has a prosthetic right leg. At age 34, Orrell is brimming with optimism. For him, the trophies he won represent how far he has come and how much closer he is to realizing his dreams. This is far different from the future he imagined in 1996 when he woke up in a Philadelphia hospital room after spending six months in a coma. Orrell had been shot …

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