In the last seconds of his life, Tommy Morrissey found a way to save the life of someone else.

"Doesn't surprise me at all," said Steve Morgan, Morrissey's longtime friend and former football teammate at Douglas Freeman High School. "He was a caring person. He didn't want somebody else to get hurt in process of trying to help him."

Last Thursday, Morrissey was at work, painting a house in the West End when his ladder became entangled in high-voltage power lines.

Morrissey, 46, was electrocuted. As he lay on the ground, a teenager who had been in the front yard ran toward him to try to help.

The teenager was within a few feet of the stricken painter when Morrissey managed to raise his head and wave him away. Seconds later, Morrissey was gone.

The strength Morrissey had to summon to do that after the jolt of electricity had surged through him is almost incomprehensible.

"Tommy was very intelligent," Morgan said. "He knew what would happen if someone tried to help him."

The teenager would have become a conductor for the electricity and a single tragedy quickly would have become a double tragedy.

Twenty-eight years ago, Morrissey was an outstanding football player at Freeman, an All-Metro and all-Central Region quarterback and an all-state punter.

He led the Rebels to the Central Region championship in 1980, the last time a Freeman football team claimed that title.

Morrissey also started at cornerback on a team that had eight players line up both ways. He often gave great aid to that defense by dropping punts inside the 10-yard line.

"I never saw him much during games because he was always on the field," said Bill Powers, then Freeman's football coach. "But he had a good head on his shoulders. He was able to communicate what I wanted to the rest of the players.

"He was the leader. He kept the team together, and that group is still close."

That group went 10-1-1.

In many ways, that Freeman team was a reflection of Powers and his quarterback -- tough, smart, fundamentally sound and able to find a way to make something out of a play that seemed to be going nowhere.

"He was the quarterback we needed," Morgan said. "We were kind of a small offensive line, and we needed a quarterback who could move around, get away from people and still get passes off.

"Tommy was a really good athlete."

Morrissey was capable of drilling passes to heavily covered receivers or dropping passes softly into the hands of open receivers.

Off the field, Morgan and Morrissey were close friends. Their friendship that grew out of the bond they shared on the field.

Morgan, the All-Metro center and defensive tackle that season, snapped the ball to Morrissey on practically every play in 1980.

"He was a loyal friend," Morgan said. "He stuck beside you."

Morrissey also was independent. He became a painting contractor so he could run his own business. He was taking care of that business last Thursday when an accident ended his life.

It could have been so much worse. Instead, Morrissey found a way for one last moment of valor.

Morgan, his voice filled with sadness and admiration, knew exactly what to say.

"Typical Tommy."

Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or pwoody@timesdispatch.com.