The woman realized she’d made a mistake thanks to a family member, but by the time she got back to the store, the trash had already been collected
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NEED TO KNOW
- A team of garbage workers helped a woman recover a $1.16 million lottery ticket (€1 million) after she threw it away without knowing it was the winner
- The team sifted through more than six tons of waste in order to find the ticket
- Then one official joked they all “touched the lucky ticket in the hope that it might bring us some luck too”
A team of garbage workers helped a woman recover a lottery ticket after she threw it away, not realizing she’d won a prize worth over $1 million.
After a self-service lottery terminal displayed a message telling the woman, who chose to remain anonymous, that her ticket was “not payable,” she threw it away in a store near Bari in Italy’s Puglia region, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
However, Roberto Nicola Toscano, the director of SANB, a local waste management company, told the outlet that the player soon realized she had made a big mistake thanks to a family member.
By the time she went back to the shop where she had thrown away the €1 million (approximately $1.16 million) winning-ticket, the trash had already been collected.
“And so the recovery operation began,” Toscano told ANSA. “We reconstructed the journey of the ticket, without much hope of finding it, as it had already been picked up by a garbage truck.”
Then, once they did find the vehicle, they ran into another issue. “It couldn’t be emptied at our facility due to the risk of waste contamination,” the official explained.
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All in all, Toscano and his team sifted through more than six tons of waste.
“Among them was the stub we were looking for, which was miraculously still in one piece,” Toscano said, adding that the winner “cried with emotion” when she heard the exciting news.
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He also joked that he “touched the lucky ticket in the hope that it might bring us some luck too,” according to Euro News.
With that luck, Toscano and his team decided to buy a scratch card while grabbing a coffee after their victory. To their surprise, they ended up winning €50 (approximately $58).
As for the lottery winner? Once she covered “all of the additional costs” that came with the public agency’s search, she was left to enjoy her lucky winnings with a crazy story to tell.
“This story is nothing short of miraculous,” Toscano said, according to the BBC.
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