‘I’m going to hide in my bed’ jokes $758m US lottery winner

THE single biggest lottery jackpot winner in history told of her shock as she received her cheque for $758 million (£591m) last night.

“I was leaving work at night. And my colleague Rob said I bet someone won with these numbers, as they could be birthdays,” said Mavis Wanczyck, 53, who has worked in the same medical centre in Massachusetts for 32 years.

Asked how she would celebrate, she replied, laughing: “I’m going to go and hide in my bed.”

Ms Wanczyck said that she had already resigned from her job on fulfilling her “pipe dream”. The ticket which made her the largest single winner in North American history was bought in her hometown of Chicopee, 90 miles west of Boston. She said the numbers were “kind of random, maybe birthdays.”

The mother of a 31-year-old daughter and 26-year-old son, Ms Wanczyck said she was driving to the cheque presentation ceremony yesterday and telling herself: “This isn’t true. It can’t be.’” Asked what she would do now, she replied: “I want to sit back and relax. I want some time.”

She said she had no plans for a holiday yet, she said, but bought a car last September and plans to pay off the loan in full.

Chris and Colin Weir, from Largs in Ayrshire, became Britain’s biggest ever lottery winners when they took home £161.7million in July 2011.