Man who survived lightning strike ends up winning $1 million lottery - a 1 in 2.6 trillion chance

Winning a lottery usually depends on a single stroke of luck, but it takes much more than that to hit the jackpot after being struck by lightning. What sounds unbelievable, happened in real life to a Canadian named Peter McCathie, who survived after being hit by lightning, and won the Atlantic Lottery prize of $1 million along with his co-worker. Both events combined had about a one in 2.6 trillion chance of happening, according to CTV news.

An Unbelievable Series of Events

McCathie won the million dollar prize in the Atlantic Lotto 6/49 in 2015, along with his co-worker Diana Miller. But this was just another one in a series of fortunate events for McCarthie who had lived despite being struck by lightning at the age of 14. “I was trying to lock the boat up, it was a very sunny day, there was one big, white cloud in the sky and the lightning bolt came through the trees and hit me,” McCathie told Canadian television outlet CTV. 

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the odds of getting struck by lightning in the country are less than one in a million. In addition to that, the odds of winning the Atlantic Lotto were even worse with one in 13,983,816. Hence these two extraordinary things happening to the same person in Nova Scotia is nearly impossible. A mathematics professor at the University of Moncton, Sophie Leger told the Canadian news outlet, "By assuming that these events happened independently … so probability of lotto … times another probability of lightning – we get approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion." 

However, the brave survivor, McCathie beat all those odds when he and his co-worker collected their million-dollar prize. The two shared that they had been buying tickets together for about a year, but they never expected to beat the odds. "I honestly expected to get hit by lightning again first," said McCathie.

The winner said he used his winnings to take his wife on a second honeymoon, after 30 years of marriage. Meanwhile, Miller was planning to take a trip to Cancun, Mexico with her share of the winnings. The win for McCathie was further sweetened when he received an additional $10,000 from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, as the owner of the store that sold the ticket.

But McCathie's family seems to have a different equation with the odds, as his daughter was also hit by lightning a few years ago. "They had pulled off the lake due to storms, so she was locking all the canoes, making sure they weren't going to get blown away, and she got hit by lightning," McCathie Shared. 

In another case of incredible luck, a retired security guard won a $24 million winning lottery after finding a ticket in one of the old shirts in his closet. Jimmie Smith, an enthusiastic lottery buyer, heard an announcement on television that a particular lottery ticket hadn’t found its winner yet.

He then thought of checking his closet, where he found a pocket full of unchecked tickets in an old shirt. Among them, he spotted the winning ticket just two days before the deadline to collect the prize.