$5M lottery win eases the pain
Posted: 10/21/2008 9:18:55 AM
Paul Jaques thought a car crash 21 years ago made a big change in his life after it permanently injured his back.
Now, it has taken a backseat to a winning, $5 million Super 7 ticket.
"We were going to stop him from going to physiotherapy because we couldn't afford it anymore," Jaques' wife, Cheryl, said at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.'s prize centre yesterday.
And now, they won't have to stop.
"It's given me security," the 41-year-old North York man said. "I got rear-ended by a guy who didn't see me and a bucket seat hit me so hard that it made me turn my shoulders 180 degrees to my hips. It tore everything and I was sore for a long time."
Following the accident, Jaques plowed on and worked for 15 years at a Sarnia car manufacturing plant to support his son, Dustin, who's now 19.
For the past six years he has been unemployed, making ends meet without disability benefits.
He said he plans to buy a car and help out his mother-in-law so "it'll be easier for her to get groceries."
The couple, who met over the Internet four years ago, might also renew their wedding vows in a castle in Ireland and purchase a cottage.
"I think I'd like that," he said with a laugh.
On Sunday night, Jaques told Cheryl, 41, to check the winning lotto numbers online for Friday's draw.
"I checked the lottery ticket before we went to bed so we could go to sleep rich, and I couldn't believe we did," he said.
Cheryl added that she was never a lottery player before she met her husband.
"My parents always give him a hard time because they say it's a waste of money. But not now," she said. "We're still letting it all sink in."
Source: Sun
