Most people are happy to come away from the local donut shop with a double double and a chocolate dip, but Terry Barkel and her husband Ezra left with $3.8 million. Last week, the Thornhill couple found out they were holding a 6/49 lottery ticket, worth more than $3.8 million. The ticket was purchased at a Coffee Time on Steeles Avenue, in Woodbridge, and Ms Barkel said her husband bought it and picked the numbers himself.
“He said something called to him that day,” she said.
The couple has won minor jackpots before, capped by a $25,000 haul in 1993. This was something entirely different, however.
Ms Barkel received a phone call from her husband who had spotted the winning numbers on television. She remained calm until she got home, however.
“He called me, a little ecstatic, and said we just won 6/49. I said, ‘relax, you’ve made mistakes
before’,” she said.
By the time she arrived, he had confirmed the numbers at a local lottery outlet, but she still double-checked on the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s website.
She called her father, two children and three sisters to let them know, waiting to have the cheque in hand before telling everyone else.
Ms Barkel already paid off her children’s mortgages so they can be debt-free and put the rest of the money in the bank while she ponders how to enjoy it.