Crashing With the Cash: Lottery Winners Whose Money Caused An Accident
What’s the first thing you would do if you won the lottery? Buy a new house? See your friends and family went for nothing? Then perhaps you might want to treat yourself to a brand new, flashy car or even something bigger and better than that, like a helicopter or speedboat.
While winning the lottery can prove to be beneficial to many people’s lives in lots of ways, sometimes spending the money on something expensive can bring you bad luck. Here are a few tales of crashing with the cash, lottery winners whose money caused an accident.
Winning Big Can Lead to Trouble
No doubt winning the lottery can bring happiness as well as wealth, but there are statistics to suggest that it can indeed shorten your life.
A study carried out at the Paris School of Economics shows that the bigger the win someone has, the riskier their behaviors might become due to the increased opportunities to spend money on partying, social drinking and expensive toys like fast cars.
Eight thousand people who won big cash prizes between 1994 and 2005 were analyzed as part of the study and researcher Andrew Clark, who conducted some of the research commented that “Winning big does indeed improve mental health. However, we uncovered counteracting health effects concerning risky behaviors. Those who win more, smoke more and engage in more social drinking.”
Indeed, the findings of the research go against the belief that the more money you have, the better your health will be.
Dr. Dorothy Rowe who is a Psychologist and author, with one of her books entitled ‘The Real Meaning of Money’ agreed and said a sudden windfall could sometimes exacerbate issues “When you win a big prize, you don’t change as a person. Also, you might think that if you get health problems, you will be able to pay your way out of them by going to the best doctors”. Although this is true, it still doesn’t lessen other risk factors.
Here are three stories which support these arguments.
Timothy Kniess
Timothy Kniess’s story is proof that you can be fortunate to win the lottery, and then be even luckier to emerge unscathed after the helicopter you spent some of your winnings on, crashes with you in it.
In October 2017, Timothy Kniess was lucky enough to win $100,000 on a scratch-off ticket he’d purchased at a local grocery store.
Once taxes were paid, he had a take-home paycheck of $69,504 and, according to his local newspaper the Gaston Gazette, he’d made plans to buy a workshop with his winnings.
That was one plan, and he did indeed buy the workshop, but also purchased a single-seat Mosquito Aviation XE helicopter. All well and good, but he had no real experience as a pilot.
On taking the helicopter out on a flight one morning, Kniess lost control of the helicopter, and it crashed and caught fire.
He managed to crawl out before the fire got any worse and was very very lucky to escape with only minor cuts and bruises.
Speaking after the accident Highway Patrol, Trooper Jeffrey Swagger told another local newspaper the Shelby Star that “The pilot was very fortunate that he did not receive injuries more severe than he did.”
It’s reported that Kniess still has enough of his lottery winnings left to buy another helicopter, but he might be better advised sticking to something a little safer.
Frane Selak
Frane Selak’s story is one that might make your jaw drop. Five years ago, the now 81-year-old won £600,000 on the Croatian Lottery. He felt his luck had finally come in after getting married for the fifth time. For Frane had suffered a catalog of mishaps, accidents, and crashes that wouldn’t look out of place in a slapstick film.
In amongst the car and plane crashes he’s been involved in, he’s also survived other disasters which include landing on a haystack, after falling out of a plane door that had mysteriously blown open.
He says that everyone always told him he was lucky to have survived so many accidents but commented: “I always think I was unlucky to have been in them in the first place, but you can’t tell people what they don’t want to believe.”
His catalog of injuries and mishaps started in 1962 when a train he was traveling on from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik jumped the rails and plunged into an icy river. In the same accident, seventeen people drowned, and he nearly didn’t make it himself after suffering hypothermia and a broken arm…
The following year, he was thrown out of a plane on the first flight he’d ever been on when a door flew open. In this accident, nineteen people were killed, but he was thrown clear of the crash and landed in a haystack.
Just three years later, he was involved in a bus crash which drowned four people, but he walked free from.
Seven years later in 1970, his car caught fire as he drove along a motorway and he got out before it caught fire and exploded.
There was another fuel-related incident in 1973 when a faulty fuel pump spilled petrol over his car engine, which was hot at the time, resulting in flames blowing through the air vents.
Twenty-two years later in 1995, he had his sixth brush with death when he was knocked down by a bus in Zagreb but walked away with minor injuries.
In 1996, he was driving in the mountains when he turned a corner to see a UN truck coming towards him. His car went through the crash barrier and over a three hundred foot precipice.
He managed to leap clear at the last minute and sat in a tree as his car hit bottom and exploded.
His luck finally turned when he cashed the £600,000 check on the Croatian Lottery, but after spending some of the money and buying a luxury home on a private island, he’s given away the rest of his fortune to family and friends saying: “money cannot buy happiness.”
He has kept a small amount of money back for a hip replacement operation, and a little more so he could build a shrine to the Virgin Mary to give thanks for his luck…if anyone deserves it after all those accidents, it’s Mr. Selak.
Speaking after giving the last of his money away, he said: “All I need at my age is my Katarina. The money would not change anything. When she arrived, I knew then that I really did have a charmed, blessed life. I never thought I was lucky to survive all my brushes with death. I thought I was unlucky to be in them in the first place.”
Mohammad Basheer Abdul Khadar
A man who bought a lottery ticket then got on a plane that crashed discovered afterward he was a millionaire!
Mohammad Basheer Abdul Khadar works in the UAE and bought a ticket before flying home to see his family. His visit home for Eid this year was no different, except for the fact he managed to survive the dramatic crash of Flight EK521.
Luckily, he also became a lottery winner thanks to a ticket bought at the same airport, Dubai International before he flew.
“I value the escape as a more precious gift from God, and I knew God saved me for some specific purpose,” Mr. Khadar told Gulf News, adding that he will put the money to good use, by giving some to charitable organizations in Kerala. “If you ask me about my plans, I obviously want to help the children in Kerala who are less fortunate than others and need some financial help and medical support. I am blessed to have finally won with Dubai Duty-Free and can’t wait to share the news with my family.”
He added that he felt like God gave him a second chance. “I don’t want to give it to a charity or build a business. I want to go out and find people who really need help and give them money. I was poor, and I know what people go through.”
Nhlanhla Dlamini
Nhlanhla ‘Budha’ Dlamini, a thirty year old man who won a massive prize of R18 million in the South Africa Lottery in 2014 has proved that not everyone can escape from tragedy unscathed after a big win, when his luxury Mercedes Benz crashed into a bakkie at high-speed ‚ according to a news report from KwaZulu-Natal news.
It was reported in the press that before his momentous win‚ he’d been working at a Shisanyama, and earning just R10 per customer he served. The win came as a huge joy to him, and he spent some of the money on an expensive car to drive around in.
However, in the fatal accident he died on impact together with his passenger‚ the newspaper said. Proof that sometimes, even with a tremendous amount of money, lady luck can run out.
