Is This the Luckiest Man on the Planet? – The Curious Story of Bill Morgan
Luck is a strange and curious thing, some say that you either have or you don’t. Still others will tell you that there really is no such thing as luck, and it’s really all down to good planning and preparation. However, as you are about to discover for yourself, some of us certainly appear to have what can only be described as ‘incredible luck’.
A Truckload of Luck
Bill Morgan is your average unassuming Australian. Honest, hardworking and, on the outside at least, just like the guy next door. However, while Bill might look like just your average Joe on the outside, this is a man with an incredible story. If some claim that they’ve been touched by Lady Luck, right before winning their next hand of poker, or narrowly avoiding getting hit by lightning, Bill Morgan can easily claim to have been hit by Lady Luck with a sledge hammer!
We roll our story all the way back to 1999, where Bill earned an okay living as a truck driver and lived in a modest trailer home in Australia. Things were going along as they do, he had a fair amount of work, paid the bills, and had a girlfriend. But, as we all know, life never stays the same for long. While on a job, Bill got into quite a serious accident and ended up in the local hospital. Things took a turn for the worst when the mediation that Bill was put on reacted negatively with his system, causing his heart to stop for about 15 minutes.
Declared clinically dead, doctors eventually managed to get his heart beating again. However, since Bill’s body had stopped functioning for an extensive period, his brain had been deprived of oxygen, long enough to put him in a coma. In fact, things were so bad for Bill that doctors had twice recommended that he be taken off life support.
One has to wonder at this point, if Lady Luck decided to intervene with that aforementioned sledge hammer.
Bill spent 12 days in a coma and, upon suddenly waking, surprised everyone by showing no signs at all of any brain damage or loss of function. As it happens so often to survivors of near death experiences, Bill began to think about the direction his life was heading in. He resigned from his job as a truck driver (makes sense), got a new job not related to truck driving, asked his girlfriend to marry him, and bought a lottery scratch card.
Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner!
“Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner” is an old saying in Australia and it certainly applies to Bill. One would think that a marriage proposal (a harrowing ordeal at the best of times) ending in a positive “Yes!” would be enough luck. However, old Bill decided that he might as well make hay while the sun shines and bought a lottery scratch card at his local supermarket. He wasn’t intending to buy a scratch card, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Bill couldn’t believe his luck when he scratched off the opaque film covering the scratch card symbols. Within a few seconds Bill had won a brand new car worth around $17,000 (AUD) which, in today’s money would be around $25,000. Most people that play scratch cards are lucky enough to win a free ice cream, let alone a brand new car.
Now, even though Bill was pretty lucky winning that car playing scratch cards, it really wouldn’t normally be that much of a story. On any other day, if anyone else had won a car playing scratch cards, the local press wouldn’t have even batted an eyelid. But this is Bill Morgan, the truck driver that had come back from the dead. A guy that survives death and then still wins a car playing scratch cards is a much more newsworthy story. Somehow the local press in Melbourne heard about this lucky man’s lucky break and decided to do a piece on him for the local paper.
Just Like That!
If you ask anyone that knows Bill Morgan, they’ll tell you he’s a nice guy. When the local news crew asked if they could interview him, he was more than happy to oblige them. Then they asked him if he wouldn’t mind reenacting the day he bought the lottery scratch card and won his new car. It is a bit unusual but Bill was convinced that it would make for a great story on the telly.
Bill agreed to do it and they went down to the local newsagent to reenact his winning day. The video footage is a bit dated now but still makes for great television. Bill is seen pulling up in the parking lot in the car that he had just won just a few days ago. It is a nice car to be sure. Then Bill does the walk through with the camera crew, showing where he bought the ticket and where he then went to go and scratch off the opaque surface to reveal the lucky symbols beneath.
To make the reenactment as realistic as possible, Bill actually buys another lottery scratch card and then proceeds to scratch off the opaque film in the designated scratch card area. We see Bill suddenly stop in what appears to be disbelief. He looks up at the camera with a look of shock on his face. The producer of the segment is no doubt really impressed with Bill’s acting ability and half expects him to say “I’ve just won a car”. Way to sell it Bill, great acting!
But Bill isn’t acting and, instead of saying “I’ve just won a car”, he says “I’ve just won $250,000. I’m not joking!”
No one can believe what he just said, everyone thinks that he is joking around. But Bill almost collapses in disbelief and emotion and it becomes very clear that he really did just win $250,000 which in today’s money would be around $351,000. That’s quite a bit of cash by anyone’s standards.
We see Bill cover his face against the wall as the emotion and realization of what just happened to him sinks in and, it’s almost all too much. The man that fought against the odds and survived a stopped heart and a 12 day coma, who then went on to ask his fiancé to marry him and then won a brand new car, has just won a considerable amount of money. As it turns out, Bill just won the biggest jackpot for that particular scratch card lottery game and then proceeds to phone his soon to be wife the good news. Naturally she can’t believe it either and thinks that Bill must be playing a prank on her. However old Bill persists and ends the phone call by saying “We got that new house” Now that’s something you don’t joke about!
Luck Can Be Contagious!
It’s an incredible story and the odds of it happening are staggering. This is something that most lottery scratch card players dream of happening to them and it happened twice to Bill Morgan. Perhaps the best part about it is the fact that he wasn’t expecting it to happen. Unlike most of the so-called ‘reality’ stories that you see today, all heavily scripted, Bill’s reactions are real. It’s very easy to be pulled into Bill’s story because it is the story of the everyday, average man.
We all relate to Bill’s story because it is something that could happen to just about anyone. There is nothing remarkable about Bill, no special skills were on display at any moment. He just happens to be an average Joe with an above average amount of incredible luck. The fact that anyone survives a horrific car crash is always a miracle, and to survive clinical death and a coma without any permanent brain damage is another miracle. That’s more miracles than most people get in a lifetime, yet Bill got both. If the story had ended there it would have been a wonderful story and we would all be happy for him. However, adding the lottery luck and you have a fascinating story that everyone can relate to. Not only that, we can take a moment and put ourselves in Bill’s shoes, imagining it to be us that wins that dream car.
There are a few news stories where the news crew is lucky enough to capture the action or the events as they unfold. For a TV news crew, this can be seen as winning the lottery in and of itself. This is how it must have felt for the Australian new crew on the day that Bill struck it lucky on the scratch card lotto for the second time. It was pure gold for all involved as we watch the fortunes of a man change for the better. Undoubtedly the sale of lottery scratch cards sky rocketed after this incredible segment was aired!
Most online lottery agents also offer online scratchcards. You can see our top picks for online lottery scratchcards here.