Mother wins $758.7m in record US jackpot
A 53-year-old Massachusetts mother of two who scooped the largest single jackpot in US history -- $758.7 million -- said it was a dream come true Thursday and immediately quit her hospital job of 32 years.
Mavis Wanczyk said she had played the lottery as a "pipe dream," never believing that it would one day be possible for her to retire early from the Mercy Medical Center, where she worked in patient care.
On Thursday that dream came true.
"I've called them and told them I will not be coming back," she said to laughter at a news conference hosted by the Massachusetts State Lottery.
"I'm going to go hide in my bed!" she added when asked how she planned to celebrate.
Wanczyk selected the winning numbers -- which included family birthdays -- and bought the ticket from a convenience store in Chicopee, a small town 100 miles west of Boston, calling it "a chance I had to take."
It came nine months after the father of her children, William Wanczyk, a former firefighter, was killed on November 6 by a hit-and-run driver while waiting at a bus shelter in the Massachusetts town of Amherst, US media reported.
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