US News

Great-granny scores $5M lottery prize after completing cancer treatment

That’s a lotto scratch!

A Pennsylvania great-grandmother who recently completed radiation treatments for breast cancer won $5 million on a scratch-off ticket, which she wound up buying after multiple flight delays put the brakes on a planned family vacation.

Donna Osborne, 75, purchased the winning ticket at a Lancaster County gas station near her home after a planned flight to Florida with her daughter to visit family was repeatedly delayed.

Two women holding an oversized check for $5 million.
Great-grandmother Donna Osborne, 75, purchased her winning ticket at a Lancaster County gas station near her Pennsylvania home. AP

“I was at the airport with my daughter. We were on our way to see family in Florida when the flight got delayed. Well, it was delayed so many times, I decided to go home. My daughter stayed and flew to Florida,” Osborne told AP.

That fateful decision to head home proved to be life-changing.

“If I didn’t leave the airport, I would have never bought that ticket!” she said.

Osborne said she bought the winning “Monopoly Own It All” scratcher with her winnings from a $5 ticket she had purchased previously and which netted her a quick $50.

She scratched the new ticket in her car in the store parking lot and couldn’t believe her eyes when she discovered she had won the game’s top prize.

A family poses in front of Pennsylvania Lottery signs
Osborne recently completed radiation treatment for breast cancer before striking it rich on the scratch-off. Facebook/Jodi Lynn

“I went back into the store and said, ‘Dan you please check this? Is it right or wrong?’ Well, the clerk said, ‘It’s right!’ ” Osborne said.

The great-granny, who said she’s been trying her luck at the lottery “since it began” in the Keystone State in the early 1970s, excitedly called her daughter to tell her the news but said “she didn’t believe me.”

Despite the life-changing windfall, Osborne said she has no plans on giving up her day job providing transportation for Amish people, saying, “I don’t know what I’d do with myself,” but she is planning to indulge in a bucket-list vacation.

“I think I’ll invest some of the prize, sure, but then go to Alaska,” she said.