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Woman gets back $1M lottery ticket she had thrown away

SOUTHWICK, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts woman who accidentally tossed out a $1 million lottery ticket eventually collected her winnings thanks to the kindness and honesty of the owners of the store where she bought it.

Lea Rose Fiega bought the $30 Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket in March at the Lucky Stop convenience store in Southwick near were she works.

'œI was in a hurry, on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it, and it didn't look like a winner, so I handed it over to them to throw away," she said Monday.

The ticket lay behind the counter for 10 days.

'œOne evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and found out that she didn't scratch the number,'ť Abhi Shah, the son of the store's owners told WWLP-TV. 'œI scratched the number and it was $1 million underneath the ticket.'ť

Fiega is a regular customer, so the family knew immediately who had discarded it.

Shah went to see Fiega at work.

'œHe came to my office and said '~my Mom and Dad would like to see you,''ť she said. 'œI said '~I'm working,' and he said '~no you have to come over.' So I went over there and that's when they told me. I was in total disbelief. I cried, I hugged them.'ť

Fiega said overcoming a near fatal bout with COVID-19 in January was like 'œwinning the lottery,'ť so she feels doubly fortunate.

'œI mean, who does that? They're great people. I am beyond blessed," she said.

The store gets a $10,000 bonus from the state lottery commission for selling the winning ticket. Fiega said she gave the family an additional reward. She's saving the rest for retirement.

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