MegaMoneySweeps
← Reading room

Long odds

The 10 Luckiest People of All Time

Miraculous survivals, impossible fortunes, and at least two stories that fall apart when you check them.

14 min read · page 5 of 11

4

Bill Morgan, who died first

Fourteen minutes clinically dead, then two lottery wins — one of them live on television.

In 1998 Bill Morgan, a 37-year-old Australian truck driver, had an allergic reaction to medication after a car accident. His heart stopped for about fourteen minutes. He was resuscitated, spent twelve days in a coma, and doctors advised his family to prepare for brain damage that never materialised.

Within a year he had proposed to his girlfriend, been accepted, and — celebrating — bought a scratch card that won him a car worth about $17,000.

A local news crew asked him to re-enact buying the ticket. He bought a real one for the camera, scratched it on film, went quiet, and then told the presenter he had just won $250,000. The footage of the reporter's face is the best thirty seconds of television in this entire article.