He lost winning $1M lottery ticket in a parking lot — and, lucky guy, found it was still there later

SPARTA, Tenn. — Nick Slatten is one really lucky guy.

On March 11, the Tennessee man found out he had a winning Tennessee lottery ticket worth $1,178,746.

And then, after dropping it somewhere Monday as he ran errands in Sparta, Tennessee, he retraced his steps and there it was — on the ground in a parking lot where he’d been earlier that day. Somehow, the wind hadn’t blown it away. And no one had picked it up.

“I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it,” Slatten, who lays tile for a living and bought the winning ticket at a grocery store March 10 after work, said of realizing he’d won.

He rushed to his fiancée’s workplace to tell her the news. Then, he went out to run some errands, including taking his brother to an automobile parts store, and stopping for lunch.

All of a sudden, he realized: The winning ticket was gone. He’d lost it somewhere.

And he hadn’t signed it. Under Tennessee Education Lottery rules, if a player loses an unsigned ticket, anyone can claim it.

So Slatten, by now panic-stricken, rushed around to retrace his steps. Eventually, he went back to the auto parts store. And there, on the ground, was his lucky ticket.

“It’s a million-dollar ticket, and someone stepped right over it,” Slatten said.

He said he and his fiancée plan to keep working but will use the winnings to buy a house, get better cars and invest. He hopes the prize will mean they can now live without “a whole lot of worries.”