Thomas L. Cook, who died at 54 when he was fatally hit by a car Sept. 11, spent much of his life recovering from the misadventures that plagued him even in the womb.
"He was kinda accident-prone, I swear to God, even before he was born," said his sister, Mady Eitani.
"He was nearly miscarried. He had serious accidents as a child. Crazy things. Broke his collarbone. He was hit in the head one time by a teeter-totter and had to have blood drained out of his skull. Wrong place, wrong time. Story of his life."
After the first few visits to the emergency room, Cook's family joked that he must have nine lives, an opinion shared by a neighbor, Dr. Arnold Silverman, a pediatric physician who became Cook's de facto on-call doctor.
"Nine lives, and he certainly used them up," Silverman said.