NFL star credited with saving man’s life after Giants kicker botched field goal attempt

Younghoe Koo’s moment of misfortune turned out to be a life-saving one for one NFL fan, and he had no idea about it.

On December 1, the New York Giants kicker was reeling a botched field goal attempt in a 33-15 primetime loss to the New England Patriots during Week 13’s Monday Night Football.

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Koo’s kick attempt – in which he pulled up and missed the ball altogether – which came during the second quarter of the contest with the Giants trailing 17-7 at the time, went viral on social media.

One NFL fan named Mark Toothaker was watching the play unfold from his bed, and having been in disbelief at what he had seen, decided to rewind the play and watch it again.

In doing so, he laughed so hard that it actually caused a seizure.

“I’ve never felt anything like this in my life,” Toothaker recalled to the Associated Press. “I felt like I got electrocuted.”

Sitting in bed alongside his wife Malory, who in a crazy twist of fate just so happens to be a nurse at a rehabilitation hospital working for a brain-injury doctor, she noticed something was off and called 911, with paramedics arriving to take him to hospital.

Only then were they made aware of the severity of what had just happened.

NFL kicker had no idea that a career low-light would save a life

After having a CT scan, it was revealed that Toothaker had, in fact, a tennis-ball-sized tumor on the left side of his brain, which was swiftly removed surgically, and turned out to be benign, causing no long-lasting damage.

But the 59-year-old, who had suffered no other symptoms that he had a brain tumor, let alone that the tumor had moved his brain six millimeters to the right.

“The kicker [Koo] saved my life because it could’ve happened any other time,” Toothaker said. “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.”

“I could have had it on a plane, anywhere. 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.”

ESPN

ESPN

Just months before that MNF clash between the Giants and Patriots, Toothake had driven and flown all over the country for work, where he serves as a stallion season sales manager for Spendthrift Farm.

Just a week prior to his seizure, he had been in Louisville to see Further Ado win the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.

“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 further recalled.

“I know it wasn’t his best moment, but it was beyond crazy. For she [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’t have been a better moment.”

Although not a Giants fan, Toothaker had been watching the game due to his friend, who just so happens to be then-Giants wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson’s father Dale, who has since gone on to join the Tennessee Titans in the 2026 off-season.

Pro Bowler Koo is currently a free agent following his release from Big Blue after the 2025 season, in which he made just four of his six field goal attempts, with a long of 44 yards, and 11-for-12 on extra points.

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Wanting to thank the 31-year-old kicker for saving his life, albeit being at the expense of viral embarrassment and a career low-light, Toothaker has since extended an invite to the South Korean to be his guest at the 152nd Kentucky Derby on May 2.

There, he will be watching Further Ado compete in the first leg of the Triple Crown, who enters this year’s Run for the Roses with 6-1 odds.

“So many people aren’t that fortunate,” Tookaker’s wife Malory added.

“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.”

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