A National Lottery winner has revealed he was just “one hour away from dying” after scooping a jackpot worth £1million.
Adam Lopez, 39, won the National Lottery jackpot last July on a scratchcard. While it gave him immediate financial security, it also led to serious health implications.
The construction worker had just £12.40 in his bank when purchasing the ticket. That changed significantly in a matter of seconds.
It would be logical to assume winning the lottery is fortuitous, but Mr Lopez made his own luck.
When asked how much he spent on scratchcards, he told the Anything Goes with James English podcast: “Loads… I think over my lifetime, you are probably looking at 200 grand.”
And the jackpot came at a pivotal time. Mr Lopez said he had “lost his mojo” and simply had “no passion for life”.
He even detailed how a colleague at work “threatened to stab” him because he didn’t “deliver his tiles within 10 minutes”.
But it all changed after making the routine purchase at a corner shop in Hellesdon, Norfolk.
Adam Lopez revealed he was just ‘one hour away from dying’ after scooping the £1million jackpot
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ANYTHING GOES WITH JAMES ENGLSH PODCAST
After becoming an instant millionaire, Mr Lopez sought to pay off his debts, provide for his mum, and buy his dream car, a blacked out Range Rover Sport.
Being an online gambler, he managed to grow his net worth significantly: “The net worth has more or less doubled, it has over doubled, like the cash net worth. I was so grateful because it went at one point to £3million,” he said.
Winners’ photographs can often be likened to a Formula 1 podium; champagne spewing from the bottle in boozy. It turns out those photos did not just represent that winning moment, but Mr Lopez’s life for months after the win.
“I won the money and I just went out every day,” he said.
“Every night after I won the money. I had a thing of just going out and buying bottles of champagne everywhere. We cleared pubs out left, right and centre.
Adam Lopez shared a close bond with his mum
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NATIONAL LOTTERY
“You wake up and go out for breakfast, next thing you know, it’s half 11, fancy a cheeky pint, do you know what I mean? And it was sort of that for three months.”
During this period, his relationship with his mum became tense, as she began fearing for his help due to his excessive boozing and frivolous lifestyle.
It turns out her fears were right; he began to have pains in his hip, which soon travelled throughout his body.
He would wake up at night with calf cramps and with each day, even walking became more of a struggle.
Then, one morning, his symptoms worsened. Waking up when his mother was at work, he said he was barely able to breathe.
Adam Lopez had just £12.40 in his bank account before winning the jackpot
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NATIONAL LOTTERY
“I looked up at the sky and thought, ‘this might be it,” he recalled.
“After standing up to go to the bathroom, he said he felt like the air had been pushed out of him.
Every second that went by, I thought I was going to die. I can’t breathe. As I walked out the bathroom, I looked in the mirror briefly, I could see I was pale, white, yellow.”
Not wanting to worry his mum during work hours, he waited until she returned home. She immediately drove him to the hospital.
“I didn’t realise until I was about an hour away from hospital that I was about an hour away from dying,” Mr Lopez said.
“[The nurse] said that when you came to us, we were told you were about an hour, maybe two, from dying, and if you’d have waited any longer, you probably wouldn’t be here.
“It came from the lifestyle that I chose after I won the money because they lottery did not push me that way, they looked after me with everything I could ever ask for, it was my own choice.”
He said the health scare was a much-needed wake-up call, but leaving his job in construction left him unhappy.
“I didn’t necessarily like the life money brought to be honest with you, I lost the structure when I won the money,” Mr Lopez added.