A woman threw out a winning lottery ticket worth £750,000 she only half scratched as she was rushing on her lunch break.
Lea Rose Fiega regularly buys cards from the Lucky Stop convenience store in Massachusetts, US, and picked up the “Diamond Millions” scratcher during a trip in March.
Ms Fiega began scratching the $30 (£21) stub but assuming it was just another unlucky ticket, she returned it to the shop owner to throw it out.
And there it would have stayed if it wasn't for an eagle-eyed shop worker who did the right thing when he realised what the customer was missing out on 10 days later.
“She was scratching one day and gave the ticket back to my mom to throw out,” Abhi Shah, whose family owns the store, told local news outlet Masslive.
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He said the ticket had been in a pile for 10 days but when he went through the stack on March 26, he realised Ms Fiega's one hadn't been fully scratched.
“It was $1 million under that number,” Mr Shah said.
As Ms Fiega was known to the store as she worked nearby, a kind-hearted Mr Shah went up to see her at her workplace.
Instead of telling her there and then, he held off so she could see for herself once she got to the store.
While concerned at first, Mr Shah reassured her saying: “No, it’s something good. It will change your life."
The woman returned to the store and burst into tears as she realised she had scooped up the $1m (£750,000) prize.
Mr Shah said he is happy he returned the scratch card to its rightful owner as he said: “I am sleeping peacefully."
The store has been awarded a bonus of $10,000 (£7,053) from the win following the family's noble quest to find Ms Fiega.
