Check if mysql connection is active / mysql has gone away

Questions
1

Silverstripe Version: 3.x

Check, if mysql connection is "alive"

I have a rabbitmq worker cli task that is daemonized by supervisord.
After a while there is an exception, because the database connection is not alive anymore
“Uncaught exception ‘SS_DatabaseException’ with message ‘Couldn’t run query: … MySQL server has gone away’ in …”.
Is there any chance to check, if database is still connected?
Tried to use code below with no luck

public function run($request) {
    $max_minutes = 60;
    $started_at = time();
    if( $channel = T32RabbitMQConnector::getChannel($this->queueName) ) {
        $channel->basic_consume($this->queueName, '', false, false, false, false, function($msg){

            if( DB::isActive() === false ) {
                print "DBConnection is not active - exiting\n";
                exit();
            }

            $data_raw = $msg->body;
            /** @var RabbitMQJob $jobObject */
            $jobObject = unserialize(base64_decode($data_raw));
            $result = $jobObject->execute();
            if( $result === true ) {
                $msg->delivery_info['channel']->basic_ack($msg->delivery_info['delivery_tag']);
            }
        });

        while(count($channel->callbacks)) {
            $channel->wait();
            if( (time() - $started_at) / 60 > $max_minutes ) {
                print "*************************************\n";
                print "Exit after $max_minutes minutes\n";
                print "*************************************\n";
                break;
            }
        }
    } else {
        echo "Could not connect to queue\n";
    }
}