By Natalie Morales
Enquirer staff writer

Members of the Bellevue-Dayton Fire Department lift the casket bearing the body of Capt. Mark Seeger onto a firetruck at Dobbling Funeral Home. Photos by PATRICK REDDY/The Enquirer

Bellevue-Dayton firefighter Joe Stanbush holds the helmet of Capt. Mark Seeger.

BELLEVUE - They remembered him as friendly, respectful and hardworking.

Friends, family and dozens of public safety employees from Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati gathered Thursday to pay respects to Capt. Mark Seeger of the Bellevue-Dayton Fire Department.

Seeger, 47, died June 25 on his way to a co-worker's party when he lost control of his motorcycle on Ky. 10 and hit an oncoming car.

The procession to Divine Mercy Parish was led by a Bellevue-Dayton fire truck that carried Seeger's casket.

"I know Mark was never scared of three things: fighting fires, getting dirty and hard work," said Bellevue-Dayton Fire Chief John Daley at the Mass. "I've never seen a man enjoy hard work so much in his life."

After the burial at St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas, attendees gathered to share memories of Seeger, a 28-year veteran with the fire department. They talked of his love for building and fixing things.

Dawn Seeger, his wife, said he was always offering to help people. She recalled how last week he helped neighbors dig a hole for a swimming pool.

"He didn't know a stranger, because everybody knew him and he knew everybody," Dawn Seeger said. "If you met Mark, you knew him and loved him as a friend."

His fellow firefighters considered him not only a friend and a co-worker, but also part of their family.

"The five of us were definitely brothers," said Brent Schafer, a Bellevue-Dayton firefighter and paramedic.

To show their respect in return, three of the men on Seeger's shift got tattoos of his badge number, 4, after he died. The tattoos also include flames and the dates Seeger was born and died.

E-mail nmorales@enquirer.com