Cancer survivor gets much-needed win in North Carolina lottery. ‘I’m a very lucky man’
A cancer survivor and his wife can pay their medical bills, thanks to a North Carolina lottery win.
“I’m a very lucky man,” Marcus Pitts told the N.C. Education Lottery in a news release published Friday.
Officials say Pitts’ good fortune came after he and his wife decided to buy lottery tickets at a Speedway store on U.S. 70 Southeast in Hickory. When they got home, they checked their scratch-offs.
“I was reading something else and she started screaming and hollering, ‘We won $250,000!’” Pitts told officials. “I said, ‘Ain’t no way, you’re wrong.’ I didn’t believe it.”
Pitts got a glance for himself and learned they had won $250,000, the top prize in the 20X The Cash game, the N.C. Education Lottery said in its news release. After taxes, the couple gets to keep $176,876, the release said.
The win came after the couple has had health issues, with Pitts going into remission for bone cancer in 2018, according to officials.
“Medical bills have taken most of our savings,” he told officials. “We’re gonna pay off some bills and try to do a little traveling.”
Pitts and his wife, who both previously worked in the textile industry and as corrections officers, also plan to help their grandchildren, according to the lottery. Pitts lives Catawba County, northwest of Charlotte.
