Md. Man Searching For Affordable Limes Wins $1M Powerball Ticket
WORCESTER COUNTY, Md. (WJZ)—An HVAC employee and father of four in search of affordable limes has claimed his winnings after he won $1 million from Saturday's Powerball drawing.
The day was quite normal for the Worcester County man who purchased the winning ticket at a local Food Lion.
The man, who chose to remain anonymous, says he actually purchased a Powerball ticket in Delaware for Saturday's drawing and was headed for the store looking for limes. He passed up limes from a previous store because he says they were too expensive which brought him to the Berlin Food Lion.
After picking up the limes, the urge to pick up just a few more tickets was an easy decision to make with $900 million on the line.
Six dollars and a Powerball Quick-pick ticket later, he's now a million dollars richer.
"I was numb," he said. As the hours passed, he tried to stay quiet. "I didn't want to wake her up. I checked my numbers, unfortunately, because I didn't sleep well," he said. Instead, he paced through the house thinking about his $1 million prize and the difference it would make in his family's life."
After hours of waiting, the man woke his wife at 4:30 a.m. to tell her about the big winnings!
"We still won a million," he told her, and then sleep was out of the question for both of them!
Lottery officials say the Worcester County winning ticket was one of 28 second-tier Powerball winners across the country in the Jan. 9 drawing. Of those 28 players, two added the Power Play option to increase their prize to $2 million. He was also the only second-tier winner in Maryland.
Three Maryland residents added the Power Play feature to their tickets, tripling their third-tier prizes to $150,000, and seven Marylanders won $50,000 third-tier prizes. In all, 406,168 Marylanders won prizes of $4 and up in the Jan. 9 drawing.
The family says they plan to pay off college loans for his children, the couple's debt and then decided how to enjoy what's left.
He has already purchased his Powerball ticket in hopes of winning Wednesday's $1.5 billion jackpot.
