Mom expecting second child wins big North Carolina lottery prize. ‘The perfect time’
A mother expecting her second child won a life-changing lottery prize in North Carolina.
“When I first looked and I saw I won, I just put my phone down in disbelief,” Ashley Helms told the N.C. Education Lottery. “Then I started crying.”
Helms, a Cleveland County resident, burst into tears after winning “at the perfect time.” She spent $1 on an online ticket for the Cash 5 game and had the lottery randomly choose the numbers for her, officials said Oct. 23 in a news release and in an email to McClatchy News.
Helms later discovered those same numbers matched all of the picks in the Oct. 17 drawing and couldn’t believe her luck. She rushed to tell her fiance about her big win.
“We are expecting our second baby in about three months,” Helms told lottery officials. “This will definitely help us prepare for that.”
Helms was one of three lottery players to hit the jackpot in the recent drawing, meaning the $1.18 million prize is being split three ways. Though one of the other winners cashed in, the last prize was unclaimed as of about 2 p.m. Oct. 23. That ticket holder still has about six months to come forward, officials said.
Helms, who kept $280,880 after taxes, said she plans to get ready for the birth of her new child and invest her prize money. She is from Kings Mountain, roughly 30 miles west of Charlotte.
It’s not the first time a lottery player with a growing family got richer. In Iowa, a woman with “a baby on the way” scored a windfall when she “least expected it,” McClatchy News reported in September.
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This story was originally published October 23, 2023 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Mom expecting second child wins big North Carolina lottery prize. ‘The perfect time’."
