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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Georgia Woman Wins $15.1M After Clerk Sells Her Wrong Lottery Ticket

(We're a little behind on this story, but it's too good not to pass along.)

Kathy Scruggs of Lithonia, Ga., has won $15.1 million from the Powerball lottery.

And as it turns out, she didn't even intend to buy a ticket for that game.

"I asked for a Mega Millions ticket, and the lady gave me a Powerball ticket," the 44-year-old Scruggs says, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I just took it anyway. So I bought Powerball and Mega Millions."

The jackpot was worth $25 million. According to Georgia Lottery officials, "Scruggs selected the cash option and will receive $15,124,017 before taxes."

The story's even more remarkable, though: Scruggs has been out of work several months. "I've been looking and looking and looking," she tells the AJC. Now, she says, "I'm going to build my mom and grandmother a home" and plans to create foundations to help the homeless and give dental care to the poor.

The Georgia Lottery has video of Scruggs talking about her good fortune.

As for the clerk, CNN's This Just In blog reports that:

"Baljit Suddan, a clerk at the Shell Food Mart in Decatur, Georgia, where lottery officials said the winning ticket was sold, said she would have been the person to have sold the slip. But she can't remember this particular sale, she said Tuesday.

" 'Sometimes it happens,' Suddan said of the ticket mix-up. 'They ask for something, and by mistake (we) give them something (else). ... It was a blessing for her.' "

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.