Mark Toothaker was enjoying a typical December evening last year at his Lexington, Kentucky home. The Spendthrift Farm employee had finished his workout and was relaxing in bed with his wife Malory, watching Monday Night Football as the New York Giants faced the New England Patriots.
What happened next changed everything.
As Malory read beside him, Toothaker watched Giants kicker Younghoe Koo completely miss a field goal attempt in a moment that looked straight out of a Peanuts comic strip. The 59-year-old found the replay so hilarious that his laughter triggered an unexpected medical emergency.
“I’ve never felt anything like this in my life,” Toothaker remembered. “I felt like I got electrocuted.”
Fortunately, Malory works as a nurse at a rehabilitation facility specializing in brain injuries. After realizing her husband wasn’t joking around, she immediately contacted emergency services.
Hospital scans revealed shocking news: a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball was growing on the left side of Toothaker’s head. “When you hear the news, ‘You’ve got a brain tumor,’ that’s what nobody wants to hear,” Malory explained.
Doctors at the University of Kentucky hospital successfully removed the growth, which tested as non-cancerous. Toothaker recovered completely and returned home within days. This Saturday, he’ll attend the Kentucky Derby to watch Further Ado, a horse owned by his employer, compete in the prestigious race.
The stallion sales manager remains grateful for that fateful missed kick.
“(The) kicker saved my life because it could’ve happened any other time,” Toothaker shared with The Associated Press during a telephone conversation. “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.”
The tumor had already shifted Toothaker’s brain six millimeters without causing any noticeable symptoms. In the weeks leading up to his seizure, he had traveled extensively by car and plane for work, including a trip to Louisville the previous weekend to watch Further Ado win the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.
“I could have had it on a plane, anywhere,” Toothaker reflected. “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t run over a family in my Expedition running up and down the road. I guess that would’ve been the hardest thing for me to live with if somebody would’ve got hurt out of this. Believe me, 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.”
Toothaker had been watching specifically to support then-Giants receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, whose father Dale is a longtime friend. Robinson later became the first player under 5-foot-8 to exceed 1,000 receiving yards since 1989 and signed a major contract with the Tennessee Titans.
The Kentucky man hopes to invite 31-year-old Koo, formerly one of the NFL’s most reliable kickers, as his Derby guest, despite the embarrassing nature of the miss. Koo was cut from the team two weeks following the game and didn’t respond to AP requests for comment.
“I know it wasn’t his best moment, but it was beyond crazy,” Toothaker said. “For she and I to be belly-laughing at his expense, which I feel terrible about now, but it all worked out in the end, that for me it couldn’t have been a better moment.”
According to Malory Toothaker, her husband has returned to his normal routine.
“So many people aren’t that fortunate,” she noted. “Really the first indication that he had a problem was the seizure — and to be in your own bed at home, not behind the wheel of a car or traveling, you’re just so humbled and feel so blessed and just fortunate that if this had to happen, it was the best-case scenario.”
