Forklift driver who won $1M in scratch-off lottery hospitalized after non-stop partying: ‘Massive wake-up call’
Adam Lopez, 39, quit his job and embraced a lavish lifestyle before collapsing at home and being rushed to the hospital, where doctors said he nearly died.
MATTISHALL, Norfolk — When Adam Lopez scratched off that lottery ticket in July, he thought it was a dream. The 39‑year‑old forklift driver had next to nothing in his bank account — roughly £12 (less than $17) — and life was steady, if modest.
But everything changed in an instant. The ticket paid out £1 million (around $1.3 million), and overnight, Lopez went from working shifts to living large.
“I looked at it, then looked at my bank balance, and I thought, ‘This can’t be real,’” Lopez says now, voice low and steady. “My knees shook. My hands shook. But it was real.”
Flush with new cash, Lopez handed in his notice at work the next day. He moved into a luxury flat, bought a new car, jet‑setted to exotic locales, threw lavish parties, and revelled in the freedom he’d long dreamed of.
“I wanted to taste every bit of it — clubs, late nights, travel, the works,” he says. “I was burning the candle at both ends.”
But paradise turned perilous when that party life caught up with him. In September, just two months after his win, Lopez collapsed in his home, struggling to breathe.
Paramedics rushed him to Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, where doctors discovered he had a bilateral pulmonary embolism — life-threatening blood clots in both lungs, originating from a clot in his leg that had traveled upward.
“I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t draw a full breath. There was panic,” Lopez recalls, his gaze distant. “I called the ambulance from my front door. I remember being wheeled out, hearing the sirens, and thinking, ‘This might be it.’”
He spent eight and a half days in hospital, hooked to oxygen, terrified, and deeply shaken. “They told me if I waited another hour, I probably wouldn’t make it,” he says.
The ordeal left him grappling with what his windfall had really cost him — not in money, but in health and perspective.
“When you lie in a hospital bed and you’re gasping for air, money is meaningless,” he says. “You hear the sirens, feel the cold sheets, see faces around you — and it’s humbling.”
In hindsight, Lopez admits, quitting his job so suddenly was a mistake. “I thought freedom meant no more working. But I lost structure, purpose. I disconnected from the life I knew.”
Without the regular routines, the discipline, the reason to step outside on a weekday morning, his days blurred and excess crept in.
Lopez says he allowed himself generous budgets early on — to splurge, to treat those he cared about — but the spending escalated fast. “You hear stories about the ‘lottery curse,’ but you never think it will be you,” he says. “I told myself I’d behave. But I didn’t. I got carried away.”
Now, recovering at home, Lopez is determined to rebuild — but smartly. He’s on blood thinners, under medical supervision, and barred from strenuous activity for months.
He’s trading penthouses for a modest home in Mattishall, and he’s opened a new mindset: one rooted in balance, health, and purpose.
“I’ve still got most of the prize, thanks to advisors who locked away a chunk early. But money doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t live long enough to enjoy it,” he says.
“I want to work again — maybe something automotive, mentoring, giving back — something that gives me structure and keeps me grounded.”
Lopez now speaks publicly about his ordeal, hoping others who come into sudden wealth take heed. “Don’t disconnect from yourself. Don’t lose your foundation. And if you feel yourself slipping, stop before it’s too late,” he warns.
Though he’s shaken, Lopez is resolute. “I’ve been given a second chance. So this time, I’ll live with meaning — not just with extravagance.”
