Serving their community

Sean Fullwood, a coach and personal trainer with Iron Legion Strength + Combat, works on Sept. 28, 2024, to cut up a large section of oak tree that nearly struck a home on West Silver Springs Boulevard during the effects of Hurricane Helene. [Photo by Andy Fillmore]

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Posted September 29, 2024 | By Andy Fillmore, andy@ocalagazette.com

Five Good Samaritans from a local gym worked for several hours on Saturday, Sept. 28, with axes and chainsaws to deal with the massive portion of an oak tree that fell Thursday night and narrowly missed hitting a senior couple’s house in West Ocala.

“I can’t believe it. This is a blessing,” said Ozell DeBose, 67, who lives with his wife, Susie DeBose, in the house located in the 1700 block of West Silver Springs Boulevard.

The tree section crashed down as the effects of Hurricane Helene rolled through Ocala. Susie DeBose, 80, said she was “scared” and “on her knees” praying to the Lord to spare their home.

“This is marvelous. (God) sent somebody to help,” she said Saturday.

The volunteer group of a trainer and four members of the Iron Legion Strength + Combat gym worked in sweltering heat to chop and saw the oak tree section into manageable pieces and gather the wood and debris for later pickup.

The section of the tree that fell measured at least 40 inches in diameter and was perhaps 40 feet long. The tree section came within about five feet of the DeBose’s house and damaged the bed cover of a pickup truck parked adjacent to the residence.

The DeBose’s were in the process of seeking an agency or program that might help them with the removal of the tree downed by the storm when Ocala Mayor Ben Marciano, who had learned about the couples’ plight, also looked for available programs and then reached out to private citizen E.J. Nieves, a local artist who trains at the Iron Legion gym. Without hesitation, a group connected to the gym formed, with personal trainer and coach, Sean Fullwood, 36, taking a lead role in handling the chainsaw work.

Fullwood described Iron Legion training programs as functional and directed toward making trainees “capable” to help people and the community.

“We’re not bodybuilders,” he said.

Isabelle Reynolds, a manager with the gym who checked in at the work site on Saturday, said Fullwood meets with his trainees at 7 a.m. for their workouts.

“The whole point of Iron Legion training is to do other things to help the community and your family,” she said.

Nieves, 40, said Iron Legion training prepares trainees to be “ready for emergencies” and to function in “real world situations.”

Chris Guthrie, 35, an Iron Legion trainee and single dad of three girls, who works with Culligan Water, credited the training as a help for him after having two back surgeries. Guthrie said he was happy to reach out and help the DeBose’s.

“Whatever we can do to help,” Guthrie said.

Randall Lacasse, 39, an Iron Legion trainee and landscaper, was accompanied to the work site by his son, Kai, 10.

Gwen Kluepfel, a trainee at Iron Legion and trainer at Gold’s Gym was also one of the work crew.

Donnovan Busby, who operates Donnovan’s Barbershop on the opposite side of the oak tree from the DeBose’s home, was thankful the volunteer crew came to help with the tree removal.

Meanwhile, Susie DeBose said her father, Andrew Pritchard, built the house with lumber he hauled to the site himself and that she was born in the house. She displayed a dated photo of her father and mother, Clara Pritchard. DeBose attended what was then Hampton Community College in Ocala and graduated in 1965 with an AA degree in sociology.

“The community came out to help,” she said of the act of kindness by the volunteers.

To learn more about the volunteer group, go to ironlegionsc.com