You won’t believe the problems that Bill Morgan had to overcome
Photo: YouTube
Winning the lottery is usually a once-in-a-lifetime event for most players. But for a small selection of happy winners, the odds worked even more in their favor.
Because the winners in these stories won twice… and in the oddest circumstances, you wouldn’t believe it.
#1. Died, Came Back to Life, Then Won the Lottery Twice
Australian truck driver Bill Morgan won twice after being revived from a heart attack
Photo: YouTube
Australian truck driver Bill Morgan was declared dead after a truck accident and heart attack. He was revived after 14 minutes and could consider himself quite lucky to be alive. Then in 1999, more than a year after his accident, he won a car worth $17,000 through a scratch-and-win lottery ticket.
Amazingly, as he was on television re-enacting his win, he scratched a ticket and won a jackpot worth $170,000 ($190,000 Australian dollars). His wife told CNN: “I just hope he hasn’t used all his good luck up.”
#2. Same Store, Same Customer, Two $1 Million Tickets
Virginia Fike of Berryville also won twice
Photo: Virginia Lottery
Virginia Fike of Berryville, Va., bought two $1 million winners at the same store, the Olde Stone Truck Stop in Clear Brook, Va (photo).
She was sitting in a hospital room with her ill mother when she saw a television broadcast saying two winning tickets were purchased at the truck stop.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if it was us?” she asked her mother. And it was.
She said she would use the money to take care of her parents and pay bills. The store got a $20,000 bonus for selling the two winning tickets.
#3. Electrician Wins Twice With Same Numbers
Two UK National Lottery stands in a Tesco supermarket where electrician Mike McDermott won the lottery twice
Photo: Supplied
Mike McDermott, an electrician in Portsmouth, England, won the lottery twice with the same numbers in the span of a year.
When he won about £200,000 (approximately US$333,000) in June 2007, the odds were 2.3 million to one, according to British publication the Daily Mail. Amazingly he won about £120,000 pounds in March 2008, and the odds jumped to 5.4 trillion to one.
“I can’t believe such incredible luck,” said McDermott, who was 50 years old at the time. After this win he retired, and with his wife Helen, bought a house on the island of Kerkenah, off the coast of Tunisia.
#4. 86-Year-Old Wins Two $8 million Prizes With Numbers From a Dream
Canadian Mary Wollens won $8 million on two tickets bought from a dream
Photo: OLG
Mary Wollens of Toronto, Canada, bought two tickets from two different stores, playing numbers that had come to her in a dream. She won $8 million on both tickets–a combined $16 million–in September 2006.
“I was lying in bed and I had a dream about numbers so I wrote them down when I woke up,” she told the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, according to a Toronto Sun article from that time.
She began playing the lottery regularly in 1982, spending $5 to $10 per draw.
“I won $100 on the very first ticket I ever bought,” she told the Sun. “I thought that it was such a good omen.”
#5. Retired Couple Wins Just as Their Previous Win Was to Expire
Diane and Kerry Carmichael won the $1 million Powerball draw just as a previous $125,000 annuity was set to expire
Photo: Arizona Lottery
A couple’s second lottery win in Arizona in September 2013 was against the odds to be sure.
Diane and Kerry Carmichael of Tempe, Ariz., won the $1 million Powerball draw just as the $125,000 annuity on their $2.5 million win from 1995 was set to expire that year.
The retired couple, unsure as of yet how they would spend their money, simply told Arizona Lottery that they would “resist the urge to splurge.”
