From trash can to treasure.
A Kentucky woman narrowly avoided a costly mistake when she tossed an $80,000 lottery ticket in the trash after a sixth sense told her she should buy it, according to authorities.
Pamela Howard-Thorton, of Shepherdsville, had a feeling she should enter the $5 Flamingo Bingo scratch-off lottery, and finally took a chance at a Speedway in Lebanon Junction, the Kentucky Lottery said in a statement.
“I just had this premonition – go get that ticket,” Howard-Thorton said, according to the organization.
After winning $200 from a previous scratch-off, she decided to return to the store to buy four more.
“They laid on the counter all day long. I had forgotten about them, so at about 11:30 that night I decided to play them,” she recalled.
“The first three were not winners so I put them in the trash. Then I was like, ‘Where’s my fourth ticket?’ I looked in the trash and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I threw it away, ” she said.
The fourth ticket she lured from the trash turned out to be the $80,000 top prize ticket.
“I scanned it, of course, I started crying, and I started shouting and screaming,” she said.
“I immediately called my daughter and my mom. My mom has always said she would give anything if she could just see me hit a big ticket before something happens to her. When I called her the night I won, she was so thankful and happy for me.”
Howard-Thorton’s final prize will be $57,600 after taxes.
She plans to buy herself a new car, pay bills and toss some of her winnings to her mother, the statement said.
