Braintree Man Pairs with Station Nightclub Survivor for Marathon Run

Two weeks ago, Robert Keogh and his wife Deirdre sat down for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen with Joe Kinan, a survivor of the Rhode Island Station Nightclub fire, and his girlfriend, also a burn survivor.

Kinan has undergone more than 120 operations over the last 10 years. His right hand is a protrusion of skin and bone, his left the first transplant done at Massachusetts General Hospital last year. 

When pyrotechnics ignited a curtain and then swept through West Warwick's Station Nightclub in February 2003, engulfing a flammable soundproofing foam, Kinan and his girlfriend Karla were trampled in a stampede of exiting club goers. 

Karla was among the 100 that night who did not survive. Kinan spent 50 weeks in the hospital, and will continue to have surgeries for the rest of his life.

During lunch, after chatting about Kinan's latest project restoring an old Chevy, and while telling Keogh and his wife about the operations and learning to live with injuries, Kinan told Keogh his secret.

"People from the East Coast don't quit, you know that," Kinan said.

Keogh smiled, recalling his meeting with Kinan during a recent interview. 

Keogh, a Milton native who now lives in Braintree with his wife and two young children, is running the Chicago Marathon on Sunday. It is his first marathon, and he has plenty to draw on when the miles get long. 

With a week to go, Keogh had raised nearly $2,500 for the Phoenix Society, a non-profit that for 30 years has worked with burn survivors, families, healthcare professionals, the fire safety industry and donors to support burn recovery, improve the quality of burn care and prevent burn injuries. 

Keogh's employer, the safety firm UL, will match at least $1,000 of that amount, for him and 10 others. It was the Phoenix Society that connected Keogh with Kinan, and which has helped Kinan and others in their recovery. 

The connection between Keogh, UL and fundraising for the Phoenix Society was built into the foundation of the company.

UL's founder, William Henry Merrill, helped kickstart the testing of electrical products and non-combustible insulation material at the end of the 19th century. UL, as it became known, would go on to test materials and equipment for fire safety around the world. 

Keogh studied engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and afterward began working for UL in Chicago.

For years he tested materials, including walls, to make sure they were up to industry fire standards. Now, after moving to Braintree from Chicago eight years ago, Keogh travels to fire departments, airports and military bases, testing fire trucks and other safety equipment.

Keogh said he and his colleagues consider the implications of proper, or improper, fire safety implementation all the time. It is their job, and also an ethos that they live every day.

"We think about that a lot, we talk about that a lot," he said.

And so when Keogh hits miles beyond what he has run in training, and gets close to the 26.2-mile mark this weekend in Chicago, he will think not only about his mother, a three-time marathoner, and his family, who have sacrificed during his year of preparation, but also Kinan and all that he has gone through.

"It was tangible inspiration," Keogh said.

For more information about the Phoenix Society, visit their website at www.phoenix-society.org, and click here to donate to Keogh's marathon effort.