{"id":636778,"date":"2026-04-29T16:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636778\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T16:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:57:17","slug":"nfl-fan-laughed-so-hard-at-kickers-flub-he-had-a-seizure-then-doctors-made-a-lifesaving-catch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636778\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL fan laughed so hard at kicker\u2019s flub he had a seizure. Then doctors made a lifesaving catch."},"content":{"rendered":"

Football is a dangerous sport. From ACL tears to concussions, athletes<\/a> risk it all from the moment they step foot on the field. An NFL<\/a> career without at least one catastrophic injury is a rare exception.<\/p>\n

Watching it at home, however, is supposed to be relatively safe. One man\u2019s story proves that isn\u2019t always the case, especially when fans get a little over excited by a generational folly.<\/p>\n

Kicker\u2019s flub causes fan to laugh way too hard<\/p>\n

Mark Toothaker of Kentucky was watching a game from the comfort of his home last season. The New York Giants were taking on the New England Patriots, and Giants\u2019 kicker<\/a> Younghoe Koo was lining up for a routine field goal.<\/p>\n

In inexplicable fashion, Koo missed. He didn\u2019t just miss the field goal uprights, he missed the ball entirely, with the toes of his right foot slamming into the ground several inches away from the ball\u2019s laces.<\/p>\n

Koo has been a good kicker throughout his career, but this was one of the worst misses of all time. Few analysts had seen anything like it before. The broadcasters were besides themselves. Unfortunately for Koo, the slow-motion, close-up videos of his blunder quickly became viral meme fodder.<\/p>\n

Toothaker was right there watching along with everyone else, but he didn\u2019t get to enjoy the moment for long. He was laughing so hard after watching and rewatching the replay that he suddenly collapsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never felt anything like this in my life,\u201d Toothaker told the AP<\/a>. \u201cI felt like I got electrocuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toothaker had suffered a seizure. Further testing showed a surprising result.<\/p>\n

Toothaker\u2019s wife, Malory, called paramedics and an ambulance quickly got him to the hospital. Doctors determined he had had a seizure\u2014his first\u2014but that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

CT imaging revealed a large tumor on Toothaker\u2019s brain: the source of the seizure. He\u2019d suffered no symptoms at all until his intense laughter preceded the intense seizure.<\/p>\n

Seizures can have all kinds of fascinating triggers<\/a>, including music, being startled, or even laughter. Some specific forms of epilepsy have precise triggers like a certain body part being touched or having your natural stride broken by someone stepping in front of you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to say if the laughter from Koo\u2019s viral miss caused the seizure, but don\u2019t tell that to Toothaker:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wholeheartedly believe I was in the right spot at the right time, and he was the trigger for that happening. It was a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"younghoeMark Toothaker\u2019s CT scan revealed the source of his seizure. Photo Credit: Canva Photos<\/a><\/p>\n

He says he thinks about what might have happened if the seizure had hit him while driving or out in public; how he could have died or accidentally hurt someone else.<\/p>\n

Instead, the tumor was identified and removed quickly. Doctors say it was benign, and Toothaker has no lasting damage from the seizure or the surgery to remove the mass.<\/p>\n

In medicine, luck is a matter of life and death<\/p>\n

Stanford Medicine<\/a> writes about how many crucial medical discoveries were happy accidents, and how good fortune always plays a big role in whether people ultimately live or die:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d be fooling ourselves if we thought that we actually had that much control over the direction of medicine. Medicine is intractable and unpredictable, and luck plays a larger role than we\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some people might call Toothaker\u2019s story a miracle. Others might just call it a case of fantastic luck that he happened to be watching and just so happened to find the NFL moment so dang funny.<\/p>\n

\"younghoe<\/p>\n

www.allproreels.com \u2014 Washington Football Team at Atlanta Falcons from Mercedes Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA October 3rd, 2021 (All-Pro Reels Photography)<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, Toothaker says he\u2019s grateful to Koo: \u201cI know it wasn\u2019t his best moment\u2026For [Malory] 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\u2019t have been a better moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post NFL fan laughed so hard at kicker\u2019s flub he had a seizure. Then doctors made a lifesaving catch.<\/a> appeared first on Upworthy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football is a dangerous sport. From ACL tears to concussions, athletes risk it all from the moment they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[505,1766,49,48,144333,238039,1718,1728,514,82,238040,164291,236128,69912],"class_list":["post-636778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kicker","tag-mark-toothaker","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-toothaker","tag-washington-football-team","tag-watching","tag-younghoe-koo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}