Chargers surprise veteran who disarmed Club Q gunman with Super Bowl tickets
The Los Angeles Chargers gifted Super Bowl tickets to the man that disarmed the Club Q gunman during their matchup against the Rams.
"It's unreal," said Army veteran Richard Fierro. "I felt like I was a part of the team for like five seconds. It was beautiful and it really was impactful for me."
Fierro has been hailed as a hero for his actions during the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs that killed five people including his daughter's 22-year-old boyfriend Raymond Green Vance.
"What he did, man, saving so many lives, salute to that," said Chargers running back Joshua Kelley.
Credited with saving several dozen lives, the terrifying experience and the pain of losing Vance still looms over Fierro's family.
"It was nice to see my daughter laughing and smiling and having a good time," he said. "She's going through a lot and so has my wife."
Not only did Fierro get to walk onto SoFi Stadium's field on Sunday, but he also got a personal tour of the Chargers' facilities. Additionally, he met all of the players during their practice last Friday.
"That guy is a modern-day hero," said Chargers defensive lineman Breiden Fehoko. "It was awesome meeting him. Nothing but respect for this man ... Coming off the field and seeing a guy like him, he was pumping us up."
After experiencing this memorable moment of shaking the hands of the men that he and his family watch every Sunday, Fierro is just happy that an essence of joy can be reintroduced into his family's life.
"It's been nice to have this kind of moment to kind of bring ourselves back to some joy," he said. "This was beautiful. This was really, really nice."
Fierro's daughter described the experience as a "tornado of happiness."
"It was just so, so fun, it was like a tornado of happiness," said Kassandra Fierro. "It was awesome."
Fierro and his family have cheered for the Chargers for years, even describing the team as his "home" while he was deployed in the military.
"This is what we do as our hobby, it keeps us at home," said Fierro. "When we're deployed or when we're anywhere else, the Chargers was like home. We just held on to that and that is just something that always brought us back to home."