Gutted: I let winner of £385m lotto jackpot ahead of me in queue
Gutted ... Mindy Crandell
NBC news
Gloria Mackenzie, 84, - described as a "sweet little old lady" - overcame miniscule odds of 1 in 175.2 million to win the astronomical sum after she cut ahead.
A CONSIDERATE mum has told how she let an elderly woman jump the lottery tickets queue in front of her - only for the pensioner to win a record jackpot of £385MILLION.
And unlucky mum Mindy told how if it wasn't for her allowing the OAP ahead of her SHE could have scooped the record jackpot.
Mindy, who allowed MacKenzie in front of her, said: "We had been standing in line and I was with the my girls and kind of paying attention to them and I turned around and there was a lady standing there and I was like, just go ahead."
Mindy said that her family joked after the jackpot was announced that she let the winner in front of her.
Then when Mackenzie was announced as the winner Mindy's young daughter downloaded a picture of her on her phone and showed it to her shocked mother.
Jackpot ... Powerball winner Gloria C. Mackenzie, 84, with son, Scott
Mindy said: "She got it when we were driving down the road and she was like, 'Mom look, the lady'. And actually I stopped."
She continued: "I was like, no way, it can't be."
MacKenzie bought the winning ticket at a supermarket in the small town of Zephyrhills, which is 30 miles northeast of Tampa.
The $590million (£385 million) was the second-largest lottery jackpot in history, behind a $656 million Mega Millions prize in March 2012, but that sum was split, with three winning tickets.
Winner ... Gloria MacKenzie's home in Zephyrhills, north of Tampa
LSFL / Splash News
In a statement read by lottery officials, MacKenzie said she purchased the ticket after another buyer “was kind enough to let me go ahead in line”.
MacKenzie let the lottery computers generate the numbers at random. She said she also bought four other tickets for the draw.
In the statement she said “We are grateful with this blessing of winning the Florida Lottery Powerball jackpot."
“We hope that everyone would give us the opportunity to maintain our privacy for our family’s benefit.”
Minutes after the announcement, dozens of TV vans were camped outside MacKenzie’s house, which backs up to a dirt alley and is across from a cow pasture.
MacKenzie’s neighbours offered few details about her life. They said she mostly kept to herself, but they’ve seen her take short walks along the street and exchanged pleasantries with her.
Record win ... Lottery official announces Gloria MacKenzie's lucky result
Her house, situated among mostly mobile homes and pre-fabricated houses, has a chain-link fence with a sheet-metal roof and an old TV antenna.
MacKenzie retired to Zephyrhills more than a decade ago from rural Maine with her husband, Ralph, who died in 2005.
Back in her hometown of East Millinocket, Maine, relatives and friends were surprised to hear of her good fortune.
Robert MacKenzie, Ralph’s brother, said the couple met just after World War II after Ralph got out of the Navy. He went to work in the town’s paper mill, labouring as a technician for almost four decades.
He said the couple raised four children in East Millinocket, a town of less than 2,000 people in northern Maine.
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