Mavis Wanczyk, Mother Of Two Wins $758.7 Million In Record Single US Jackpot, Quits Job

A 53-year-old Massachusetts mother of two who scooped the largest single jackpot in US history- $758.7 million- said it was a dream come true Thursday and immediately quit her hospital job of 32 years.

Mavis Wanczyk said she had played the lottery as a "pipe dream," never believing that it would one day be possible for her to retire early from the Mercy Medical Center, where she worked in patient care.

On Thursday that dream came true.

"I've called them and told them I will not be coming back," she said to laughter at a news conference hosted by the Massachusetts State Lottery.

"I'm going to go hide in my bed!" she added when asked how she planned to celebrate, wearing black-framed glasses, a zip-up hooded black sweater over a grey lace top, necklace and shoulder-length thick auburn hair.

Wanczyk selected the winning



numbers- which included family birthdays- and bought the ticket from a convenience store in Chicopee, a small town 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Boston, calling it "a chance I had to take."

Recently Widowed

"I was just there to buy it for luck," she explained, chewing gum and grinning. Accompanied to the news conference by her mother and two sisters, she was still dazed after her monumental win.

It came nine months after the father of her children, William Wanczyk, a former firefighter, was killed on November 6 by a hit-and-run driver while waiting at a bus shelter in the Massachusetts town of Amherst, US media reported.

A local man, accused of driving a pickup truck at high speed, was subsequently charged with offenses including motor vehicle homicide, manslaughter while under the influence and leaving the scene.