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It’s hard not to dream about being able to quit your job and doing whatever you want after winning the lottery. One man in England was able to do exactly that after striking it big on a scratch-off ticket, but he got a sobering reality check when he ended up in the hospital after months of nonstop partying.
Most people will never know what it’s like to win a life-changing sum of money by playing the lottery, but there are a number of cautionary tales that suggest it can be a gift and a curse.
An oft-repeated stat about 70% of lottery winners eventually filing for bankruptcy isn’t supported by any actual data, but there are plenty of stories involving people who ended up broke after finding themselves on the receiving end of a substantial financial windfall.
One man who won over $1.3 million over the summer has not ended up in that situation, although he was nonetheless responsible for a different kind of cautionary tale thanks to what transpired after he hit it big.
A forklift driver who quit his job after winning the lottery in the United Kingdom landed in the hospital after partying too hard
Adam Lopez, a 39-year-old who resides in a small village outside of Norwich, England, had around $17 in his bank account in July when he saw that number balloon by 8,064,520% after purchasing a scratch-off Millionaire Maker lottery ticket that was worth around $1,344,000.
According to the BBC, he promptly quit his job as a forklift driver and treated himself to a new car while buying another one for his mother. He subsequently found himself with plenty of free time on his hands and a sizeable amount of cash to entertain himself with, but he got what he described as a “massive wake-up call” when he found himself being rushed to the hospital in September.
Lopez told the outlet he’d been “partying for the last three months” before the good times came to a screeching halt when he was diagnosed with a bilateral pulmonary embolism after a blood clot that formed in his leg made its way into his lungs and left him unable to walk or breathe.
He acknowledged he’d gone a bit too hard while “burning the candle at both ends” in the wake of his lottery win, saying, “I knew what I was doing was going to come to an end eventually, and it nearly came to an end in the worst possible way.”
Lopez ultimately spent eight days in the hospital before being released and says doctors told him it will take him between six and nine months to fully recover from the setback he described as a blessing in disguise, noting he regretted his decision to quit his job and realized he needs a bit more structure than that offered by the path he decided to go down.