An NFL fan from Lexington, Kentucky believes a missed field goal by New York Giants kicker Younghoe Koo might have saved his life.
Mark Toothaker settled in at home after a long day at Spendthrift Farm and the gym to watch the Giants take on the New England Patriots on “Monday Night Football.” What happened next turned a comedy of errors on the field into something far more serious off it.
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Toothaker laughed so hard at Koo’s botched attempt that he suffered a seizure. The violent episode felt like he got electrocuted and sent him straight to the hospital. Doctors ran a CT scan and found a tumor the size of a tennis ball on the side of his brain.
“[Koo] saved my life because it could’ve happened any other time. I wholeheartedly believe I was in the right spot at the right time, and he was the trigger for that happening. It was a miracle,” Toothaker said, per Collin Ruggs.
Toothaker is 59 years old and never saw it coming. The tumor pushed his brain six millimeters to the right without giving him a single warning sign. In the months before the seizure, he stayed busy in his role as stallion sales manager at Spendthrift Farm.
He drove and flew across the country for work on a regular basis. Just the Saturday before, he traveled to Louisville to watch Further Ado win the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.
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Looking back, Toothaker realized how much worse things could have gone if the seizure hit while he was behind the wheel or in the middle of another routine moment.
“As tough as that thing was, as violent as that seizure was, I have no memory of it and I would find it hard to believe that I wouldn’t have hurt somebody or hurt myself if I would’ve been behind a wheel,” he said.
The bizarre chain of events started with a kicking mishap that went viral and ended with Toothaker getting a diagnosis that likely saved his life. Without that laugh and the seizure it triggered, the tumor might have gone undetected until it was too late.