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A British forklift driver who turned into a millionaire overnight suffered a life-threatening health scare after months of nonstop partying — forcing him to rethink his post-jackpot lifestyle, according to a report.
Adam Lopez, 39, went from having nearly $17 in his bank account to having over $1.3 million on hand after winning a scratch-off lottery in July, BBC reported.
By September, Lopez was in the back of an ambulance suffering from a bilateral pulmonary embolism, the outlet reported.
“I knew what I was doing was going to come to an end eventually, and it nearly came to an end in the worst possible way. It was a massive, massive wake-up call,” the Mattishall man told the outlet.
The forklift driver turned millionaire recalled “partying for the last three months” and “burning the candle at both ends” after suddenly winning the life-changing prize.
“It’s allowed me to live a bit of a life I’ve never lived, but I think I went the wrong way about it… it was enjoyable until my health became an issue,” Lopez said.
“It became apparent about three weeks ago… with a blood clot in my leg which spread to my lungs,” he said.
Lopez was hospitalized in the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital for eight and a half days, calling the ordeal a “kick up the backside.”
“I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t breathe. I rang the ambulance, I got wheeled into the ambulance from my house and the biggest life-changing thing I had, was laying in the back of that ambulance and hearing the sirens,” he said.
He credited hospital staff for his recovery, saying he felt he was “surrounded by angels.”
“It just makes you look at both sides of life because it doesn’t matter if you have a million, 100 million, a billion, a trillion — when you’re in the back of the ambulance, none of it matters,” Lopez said.
After winning the lotto, Lopez quit his job as a forklift driver, a move he said he now regrets.
“I left my job and I never should have done that. I lost the structure to my life and day-to-day living… it was a complete disconnect from the life I was living.”
Lopez says he is now focused on recovery for the next six to nine months and hopes to be “back to the full version of me.”
