MISSION VIEJO -- Thuan Le checked her SuperLotto Plus ticket in the self-service machine at the CVS store in Mission Viejo, and something happened different from all the other times she checked.
Before getting too excited, Le and her coworkers walked up to Jonathan Ziebell, a shift supervisor at the pharmacy on Santa Margarita Parkway.
"You have the winning ticket," he told Le.
Cheers and screams erupted. Le's coworkers jumped in the air and clapped. Le's reaction? Tears and near collapse, Ziebell said.
Le recently claimed her ticket -- worth $14 million -- at the California Lottery's Santa Ana District Office, according to a lottery news release.
Le told lottery officials she and a friend usually buy their tickets together at the same store every week. Last week, the single mother of four stopped into CVS by herself.
She put her money in the self-service terminal and bought her usual tickets, two Powerball and one SuperLotto, lottery spokeswoman Cathy Doyle Johnston said. None of them was the winning ticket.
The one she got by accident was.
Le inadvertently put $6 in the machine -- she normally puts in $5 -- and when she realized she had a credit, she decided to get another SuperLotto ticket, she told lottery officials.
That was the winner. She had all five numbers -- 5, 33, 25, 46, 32 -- plus the Mega number, 26.
Le called her sons to help her fill out the necessary paperwork to claim the ticket. They thought she was joking, one son told lottery officials, but soon realized she wasn't.
Le plans to buy a house, travel and visit her parents in Vietnam, according to the release. CVS will receive $70,000, one-half percent of the jackpot, for selling the winning ticket.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7363 or mshadia@ocregister.com
(c)2013 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.)
Visit The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) at www.ocregister.com
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