Mountain View resident Emily Leach had the good fortune to wake up from a tumor-induced coma two years ago, and on Friday she won $1 million in the state lottery to pay off her medical bills.
The 30-year-old Mountain View resident found the winning $10 ticket among 40 she had purchased from the Liquor and Tobacco store at 1040 N. Rengstorff Avenue. When she scratched the winning number on the $250 Million Cash Spectacular sweepstakes ticket, she reportedly locked herself in her car and frantically called her mother, who thought she had been in a car accident.
“I’ve got so many medical expenses, and all of my paychecks go to paying Kaiser and to live here and everything,” she said in an ABC television interview Monday. “Just things like this just don’t happen to me, you know. I don’t know — it’s a miracle.”
Leach reportedly also won $5,000 in the lottery just before Christmas.
“Her lottery winnings will go a long way toward paying off medical bills and helping out her family, who she says have helped her tremendously,” reports the California Lottery website. “Emily also told us that she has two brothers who live out of state, so she hopes to get everyone together for a much-needed family vacation.”
Leach continues to battle her tumor, and says it was a miracle that she woke up from her coma. The odds of her winning the Lottery prize? One in 1.2 million.
Congratulations, Emily! I think it’s really tremendous that you have survived so much, and I wish you the best with your health.
I wish our country could find it within itself to do the right thing and instead of spending our money on healthcare paperwork (to benefit insurers), spend on it on healthCARE. I thought it was so sad when I heard that the little boy who caught that recordbreaking ball a few years ago (can’t remember now which), said beaming to the camera that now he could HELP pay his dad’s medical bills (meaning, it probably wouldn’t even cover them all even though it was several hundred thousand dollars he sold it for).
I wish you a healthy New Year, and lots of luck!
To Anonymous – I thought the same thing. I am very pleased this well-deserving young lady won this money but I wish she could spend more of it on enjoying her life instead of forwarding it to insurers and their bill collectors.
Congrats to Emily. Wishing you all the best.
With mountains of debt, how often does she blow $400 on lottery tickets? Here’s betting that million will be spent before she has to pay taxes on it.
Fiscally fit, thanks for the laugh! I totally agree! I’m still happy for her though. Better than illegal immigrants winning.
This story is about keeping the faith, SOMEONE eventually had to win~ I am glad it went to someone who really needed it! Ask anyone who is buying lottery tickets WHY THEY are buying their tickets…everyone has a dream….unfortunately, we can’t all win..Clean up your disappointment…the money from the ticket purchases are used to go to “school children”, correct??????????? Hummmmmmmm…..
I am confused …if she had medical insurance, she wouldn’t need the million to pay her medical bills. If she didn’t have insurance, and wasn’t “independently wealthy”, she would go bankrupt, which would get rid of her medical bills and put her onto MediCal. ( I know, I have been there.) If her family is wealthy enough to back her up financially, congrats! In other words, it is odd that she has supposedly 1,000,000 in med bills. It just doesn’t add up.
The whole thing about “medical bills” is confusing.
But whatever it is, I am just very, very happy that someone else has beat back the cancer horror and won a lottery!!