How Chargers coach Anthony Lynn was 'emotionally ambushed' in Super Bowl ad

Anthony Lynn knew he was going to a firehouse to talk to dozens of first responders for a Super Bowl commercial. What he didn’t know was the gathering also included the responders who’d saved his life nearly 14 years earlier.

“I can’t even explain the emotion that went through my body” upon meeting them, Lynn said.

He doesn’t have to explain. The commercial does that for him.

It shows several first responders stepping forward to say they were there the night Lynn was struck by a drunk driver while crossing the street. And it shows Lynn’s face in the moment of meeting them – surprise, joy, gratitude and wonder all rolled into one stunned expression.

“I was emotionally ambushed,” Lynn said.

SUPER BOWL ADS: Watch and rank them at Ad Meter

The ad for Verizon was scheduled to run in the second half of Sunday's game and was among those competing in USA TODAY's Ad Meter, a ranking of Super Bowl ads by consumers. The winner will be crowned on Monday.

The ad featuring Lynn was filmed in December. USA TODAY Sports spoke that day with Lynn, coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, and Peter Berg, who directed the spot.

“It was an emotional reunion,” Lynn said. “I had tears, and they were fighting tears. We were hugging and they were shocked to find out I was coach of the Los Angeles Chargers now.”

Lynn was struck by the drunk driver on Aug. 20, 2005 in Ventura, Calif., when he was an assistant coach for the Dallas Cowboys. He cartwheeled through the air and landed on a Volkswagen roughly 50 feet away. The car was totaled.

“We assumed that was the car that hit him,” said Skyla Bosco, a paramedic on the scene that night. “Little did we know that was the car he landed on.”

Lynn was bleeding and mostly unresponsive as Bosco and other first responders tended to him. They didn’t think he was going to survive.

“We thought he was going to die or be paralyzed,” she said.

Soon an ambulance rushed him away. He’d suffered collapsed lungs, broken ribs and major facial and shoulder damage that required four surgeries.

Lynn remembers the doctors and his time at the hospital, but has no recollection of the scene after he was struck. He learned many of the details of that night for the first time from the responders.

“They told me I couldn’t breathe, I was choking on my own blood,” Lynn said. “They had pipes down my throat. They’re the ones who got me stabilized until the cavalry got there.”

Bosco said meeting Lynn was as emotional for her as for him.

“I am not an emotional person but that almost got me crying,” she said. “It was awesome. Here’s this guy who no one who was there thought would live or walk again and he became this really famous person.”

Berg said Super Bowl ads are normally story-boarded and planned to the nth degree. This one was nothing like that.

“It’s a bit scary for the company that is signing the checks and buying the Super Bowl time to be told, ‘We’re going to improvise and we hope we get something really emotional, but we aren’t 100% sure,’ ” Berg said. “There was a certain structure to the concept, but like so many of the stories I tell, I like to improvise. We wanted as authentic a moment as we could possibly get.”

Lynn knew only that he’d be speaking to dozens of first responders for a Verizon ad meant to praise and thank them.

“He was going to talk to them the way he talks to his football team, from the heart, about the heroic nature of a first responder,” Berg said. “Literally, that was about all we had planned. We just had to make sure that if something special happened we wouldn’t miss it.”

The driver that night was convicted on felony hit-and-run charges. His blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit.

Lynn said he tries not to think about that horrific night but every so often he sees something that brings it all back. Meeting his first responders, he said, gives him some sense of closure.

“Just to meet the people --- my angels who saved me --- is unbelievable,” Lynn said. “I’ve always wondered who they were. I always knew I was blessed to be here. And now I know my angels.”