Family Pays Tribute to Guard Who Died a Hero

Carefully arranging dozens of photographs on the kitchen table, Ricardo Ortega Jr.’s family pieced together a final tribute to their fallen hero.

The collage of funny, smiling images they created was a graphic goodbye to Ortega, a 28-year-old security guard who drowned trying to rescue a passenger who jumped off a boat during a late-night Valentine’s Day cruise as it headed into San Francisco Bay.

Ortega’s body was found near Pier 40 March 8, bringing a sad ending to three worry-filled weeks for his family and friends.

His wife, Willa Ortega, three sisters and parents spent hours picking the pictures they said reflected Ortega’s playful, adventurous personality. It was to be displayed during a Mass in Ortega’s memory.

It is the way Ricky would want to be remembered, Willa Ortega said as she pressed “thought bubble” stickers onto pictures.

“He was a lot of fun, always smiling and joking,” she said as she put a “He’s My Hero” balloon above a picture of Ortega and his father embracing. “He was hugging the heck out of people all the time.”

Willa Ortega, still wearing her wedding rings, said she had never given up hope that her husband would be found alive.

“I always wondered how people with missing children could ever find closure, and I did not want that for our family,” she said. “This is closure, because even though we don’t have him anymore, in a way we do.”

Ortega’s body was badly decomposed but was found with his clothing and identification. His boots were untied, in what the medical examiner told Willa Ortega was probably an attempt to free himself from the steel-toed shoes that were weighing him down.

It was the tattoo of a pouncing panther on his right forearm that was the definitive identifying mark for the family.

Ortega had gotten the tattoo after graduating from Army basic training when he was 18--the result of a youthful fascination with the sleek, strong animal.

Even his security business was named Panther Private Security Services. He cared about helping and protecting people, which is why he was so quick to leap after a 20-year-old tourist from Georgia who jumped from the third tier of the boat that fateful night, Willa Ortega said. The tourist’s body has not been recovered.

Perhaps the most painful part of the ordeal for the family came when Ortega’s mother, Gloria Ortega, realized exactly where her son’s body had been found. It was just 150 feet from the part of Pier 40 that she walks every day on her route as a mail carrier.

“I couldn’t believe that; I had such mixed feelings,” she said. “I was happy because it was like he had come back to me, but I was so sad because every time I go to work I will remember that they took his body right from that area.