METHUEN — If ever you were having a bad day, all you had to do was run into Jack O’Keefe.
“He’d turn your day around,” said O’Keefe’s longtime friend, Carol Ratcliffe of Methuen. “He didn’t have mean bone in his body.”
“He was a great, great guy. … A dedicated worker,” she said.
O’Keefe, 62, was killed in a chemical explosion at Seqens, formerly PCI Synthesis, on Opportunity Way in Newburyport.
His body was recovered around 5:25 p.m. Thursday in the heavily damaged, scorched factory building.
Four other workers survived the blast at 12:45 a.m. Thursday. They were treated at a local hospital and released.
Friends said O’Keefe survived a previous fire while working at the plant.
O’Keefe, who grew up in Lawrence, was well known and well liked by many throughout the Merrimack Valley. An Army veteran, he had two adult children he adored.
“He is one of the nicest people I have ever met,” said Kathleen Carroll, also a Lawrence native. “He loved his Sam Adams and rock and roll. He was always smiling and laughing.”
Ratcliffe agreed and described O’Keefe as “always happy-go-lucky.”
“He’d do anything for anybody,” she said.
She said she first met O’Keefe about a decade or so ago through the old Gateway Pub located on Merrimack Street in Lawrence. She said they became part of a large group of friends who would meet up at the pub, but also had cookouts and parties at their homes.
“He always referred to all the ladies as ‘darlin,'” Ratcliffe said.
While in the Army, O’Keefe was stationed in Germany and enjoyed bratwurst in that country.
“He loved bratwurst and would always bring it to the summer parties,” she said.
She said O’Keefe was also an ardent Boston sports fan who didn’t like to miss a Bruins game.
Both Carroll and Ratcliffe said O’Keefe was a devoted father to his two children, who are now adults.
“His pride and joy,” Ratcliffe said. “He’d do anything for his children.”
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter @EagleTribJill.