A winning scratch-off lottery ticket has provided a ray of light for a North Carolina man who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Richard Beare of Charlotte is planning on taking his wife on a dream vacation and enjoying himself after claiming a $250,000 prize from a winning Carolina Black scratch-off ticket.

"I recently got diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer," Beare said in a news releasefrom the North Carolina Education Lottery. "I want to travel while I can still enjoy myself. My wife has always wanted to go to Italy, since that's where her descendants are from. Now I can take her."

The retired auto mechanic is not a regular lottery player, but he stopped by a Quik Trip in Charlotte two weeks ago to buy some Powerball tickets because of the giant jackpot. He also decided to purchase four $5 Carolina Black lottery tickets.

"The fourth one was the winner," he said. "When I saw that I had matching numbers, I asked (the clerk), 'What does it mean if I match the numbers?' She said it meant I won a prize. I told her, 'Well, I guess we just won $250,000 then.' She was in shock and just kept looking back and forth to me and the ticket."

Beare will take home $176,876 after state and federal taxes.

"This feels great," Beare said. "It's such a relief."

Beare is the latest feel-good story to come out of the North Carolina lottery. In January, former presidential chef Roberto Mendoza also won $250,000 playing a scratch-off game, which he put towards funding a facility that feeds the homelessin a village in the Dominican Republic.