Under a sweltering sun, 65-year-old Mary Lee Davis rolled her wheelchair out to Sheridan Boulevard to watch a funeral procession that lasted 45 minutes and stretched for miles.
She had never met Lt. Richard Montoya. But in the last week of his life, “I just prayed and prayed and prayed that that man would pull through,” she said.
The death of a man she never met came close to her heart.
Her son is the fire chief at the Platte Canyon Fire Protection District, which battled the devastating forest fires of 2002. Her 20-year-old grandson fights forest fires between college terms. Her late father and brother retired from the Denver Police Department.
“We come from a long line of firefighters and police,” she said.
Before her, a long line of fire engines, trucks and cars from all parts of Colorado passed slowly toward Fort Logan National Cemetery, lights flashing.
“It’s really a brotherhood,” she said.
As she watched, she couldn’t help worrying that one day, her son or grandson, or her nephew in the Douglas County sheriff’s department, would lie in the casket heading such a procession.
“We don’t want any more deaths in the line of duty,” she said. “It’s a great concern to me, but I know if something happens to any of them, they would die doing what they love to do, their passion.”
The brotherhood that came to bid farewell to Rich Montoya Thursday overflowed Colfax Avenue. They stood silently in dress uniforms, saluting as the coffin passed the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Young police cadets passed among them, offering cold bottles of water, as a giant television screen brought the funeral to the street.
As Montoya’s son spoke of his father, firefighters on the street wiped away tears beneath their sunglasses.
They came from Denver, from throughout Colorado, from Wyoming and Idaho. Two firefighters came from New York City, part of its continuing thanks to a nation that honored those who gave their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.
In Grand Junction, Josh Evans found a fellow firefighter willing to work the last three hours of his shift so he could leave at 5:30 a.m. with three other firefighters and roll into Denver in time for Montoya’s funeral.
“We all do the same job and take the same risks,” he said. “Just want to pay our respects.”
Byron Mathews, who drove from Cheyenne, had met and ridden with Montoya when he studied firefighting at Red Rocks Community College.
“I knew Rick personally,” he said. “But more important than that, we come to honor the family of a fallen brother. We’re a family, and they’re a part of it. You hate to have anyone feel this kind of pain.”
Staff writer David Olinger can be reached at 303-820-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com.
