Binmen pull off incredible rescue after woman accidentally throws away £857,000 lottery ticket
A lottery winner who accidentally binned a €1m (£857,158) winning ticket has proven that her luck still hasn’t run out after a team of refuse workers were able to find it.
The player, who did not want to be named, got rid of the ticket in a shop in Bitonto, southern Italy, after being told it was ‘non-payable’.
According to the BBC, the ‘non-payable’ message appears when a prize is too large for the shop to pay out, leading to the confusion.
However, the winner wasn’t aware of that and only realised her mistake after a family member later told her that the numbers she always played - 2, 4, 8, 10, and 51 - had come out. Not ideal.
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The winner then went back to the shop but was given the crushing news that the bins had been emptied.
She was told they had been collected by North Bari Environmental Services (known as SANB) a company that handles waste collection in the area.
With a million euros on the line, the woman reached out to SANB to tell them about the mix-up and to see if there was any way they could track down the missing ticket.
Fortunately for her, the company was able to determine which lorry had picked up the bins at the shop.
SANB boss Roberto Nicola Toscano, told Italian news agency Ansa: “We reconstructed the journey of the ticket, without much hope of finding it, as it had already been picked up by a garbage truck.
"Luckily it was a Sunday, otherwise the load would have already ended up in landfill.”
After the lorry was identified, it was then taken to a site where the team could begin the search for a ‘small piece of paper hidden in a mountain of waste’.
But it seemed the woman was on a bit of a streak when it came to good luck and, after an intense two-day search, it was finally unearthed.
"It was in a hole-ridden bag along with other damaged tickets: this was one of the few intact ones," Toscano told Ansa.
The person who found the ticket reportedly cheered as though they’d won the top prize themselves.
As for the actual winner, Toscano said ‘she cried with emotion' after being told the ticket had been found.
“I would have hugged her, but we were on the phone,” he added.
“This story is nothing short of miraculous."
Toscano went on to say that before he handed over the ticket, he made sure to touch it just in case the good luck rubbed off - and it did.
According to the refuse boss, he and some of the team went off and bought themselves a scratch card shortly afterwards and landed a €50 (£43) win.
Meanwhile, the winner will be laughing all the way to the bank now their ticket has been found, but she will have to fork out for the costs of the recovery operation.
Prior to the team launching the search, the winner took another gamble, signing a contract saying she would cover the cost whether it was found or not.
Thankfully for her, it was another gamble that paid off.
Claire Reid