Gas blast cut short a life lived all-out

When his 19-year-old son, Mark, finally landed a job at Philadelphia Gas Works in August, Thomas Michael Keeley knew he would be in good hands. PGW workers are like a brotherhood, and after 16 years, Keeley had many friends. He asked Kevin Sommerville to mentor his son, teach him the rules, and watch out for him.

"Kevin's a top-notch guy," Keeley said. "I requested that they let him be Mark's foreman." When the call came in Tuesday night about a gas leak in Tacony, one of the two crews responding was Sommerville's.

"He told Mark to wait on the street while he and another guy went into the building," Keeley said, holding a stack of Mass cards. "He thought Mark would be safe, leaving him outside."

Minutes later, a 12-inch gas main blew, torching the sky, toppling buildings, and shocking residents throughout the neighborhood.

At Mark Keeley's viewing last week at St. Cecilia's Catholic Church, Sommerville made his way through the crowd of 2,000 mourners to offer his condolences.

He had been pulled from the wreckage and was among the six workers who were badly injured. With his face, arms, and hands bandaged, he must have been in terrible pain, said Peg Keeley, but he only wanted to talk about her son.

Of the three Keeley children, Mark, the youngest, was the imp.

"He was always so independent," she said. At 2, he taught himself to ride a two-wheeler. He would play at full throttle, building complete Lego metropolitan areas. "Then he'd be sitting at the dinner table and his head would go down, thunk, into his plate." He only tolerated school. After his first day of kindergarten, he told his mother, "Oh, my God! How many years do I have to go?"

While his brother, Thomas John, and sister, Lauren, worked their way through Cardinal Dougherty High School, headed for college, Mark Keeley preferred sports and socializing.

His parents, understanding that he was going to take a different road through life, accepted him for who he was.

At the viewing, when the school librarian introduced herself, Peg Keeley was surprised.

"How did you know him?" she asked.

Peg Keeley and her daughter had spent "so many Sunday nights when he'd have a major project due the next day and he'd come to us at 5 p.m. and say, 'Hey. What are you guys doing?' " Then he would enlist his mother and sister to do most of the work.

Lauren, now 25, said she was inspired to become a special-education teacher by watching Mark Keeley respond to her inventive ways of "tricking" him into learning to read, write, and do math. "He was very smart. He just needed different tools." Always a dexterous athlete, Mark Keeley played basketball, baseball, and - until his junior year in high school - football. By that point, he had sustained so many concussions that his doctor insisted he find another sport, so he took up soccer.

For years, he also coached teams at the local city recreation center.

"He loved kids," recalls his brother. "He's the only one I know who could have a serious conversation with a 3-year-old."

Every summer at Wildwood or Sea Isle, Mark Keeley would plan the activities. "OK!" he would say. "Let's go! First running bases, then we'll go in the water, then Wiffle ball." He would also play the rascal, waiting until his father fell asleep on the sand, then putting bread crumbs on his back to attract seagulls.

For all his buoyancy, Mark Keeley was plagued by health problems - reflux as an infant, asthma, and, in middle school, intermittent hair loss. "It toughened him up," his father said. He had friends who were dealing with far more serious illnesses, and he put his own in perspective.

A boy of little moderation, he loved shoes (more than 30 pairs, most of them sneakers), potatoes, and sweets - Kit Kats, Swedish Fish, Starbursts, Hershey's Kisses, and the marshmallows from Lucky Charms.

He also had heart. Last year, when his girlfriend's sister was hit by a train, Mark Keeley visited the girl in the hospital and, after she came home, enlisted his father to help him build a ramp and widen the doors so she could get around in her wheelchair.

His lifelong dream was to become a Philadelphia police officer. But his mother believed he would be much safer investigating leaks with PGW.

He seemed happy at the company, where both his father and great-grandfather had made a good living.

"He planned to retire at 49 with 30 years on the job," said his sister.

"He was going to run the company," his father said. "He would tell me, 'Another day closer, Dad. Get ready. Because I'm going to be your boss.' "

Thomas Michael Keeley stressed the importance of being careful. "This company has been around for 200 years. There are guidelines. You learn from your mistakes. You safeguard life." But gas, he said, is unrestrained. "It just goes. It's lighter than air."

On Sunday of last week, the family got together for the last time. Mark Keeley and his brother, a junior at Temple, played computer games. Lauren and her husband, Joe, came over for cheesesteaks.

Both Mark Keeley and his father worked Monday, but their shifts did not overlap. Peg Keeley had seen her son at 3 a.m. to help him apply a medicated cream to his back.

He left for work in the afternoon. Just after 8:30 p.m., Lauren and Joe caught the news on television. The phone calls started. Text messages flooded in from friends and relatives, asking if Mark Keeley was at the scene. There was no word from PGW, so Thomas Michael Keeley called a dispatcher. While he was on hold, the family began calling every hospital in the city. Finally, a supervisor came on the line.

"Who was there?" Thomas Michael Keeley asked.

"Mark's crew," came the answer. "They think it's your son that's missing."