A mom-of-three who evacuated from her home in Ocoee, Florida, won $10,000 after buying a lottery ticket on her journey north to flee from the hurricane.
Tiffany Hatfield, 28, left the home she recently moved to near Orlando around 10pm Friday night with her three young daughters to drive to a friend’s home in Virginia.
The family drove through the night in heavy traffic along with everyone else fleeing from the impending storm.
It was then that the family went to a convenience store in Rocky Mount, North Caroline to stop and stretch.
The mom bought two $5 Diamond Dazzler scratch-off tickets, not believing when one said it was the $10,000 winner.
Tiffany Hatfield, 28, is pictured with he three daughters as they evacuated their Florida home near Orlando
Hatfield had just moved to Florida from Connecticut in June when Hurricane Irma struck
The family stopped in North Carolina to stretch when mom bought a $5 scratch-off lottery ticket
After just moving to Florida from Connecticut in June, Hatfield is still settling in and will begin a new job next week as an administrative assistant at a dentist office.
She told Dailymail.com, that her daughters have been planning on how to spending the winnings, ‘but in all honesty we are new to Florida will use it to redecorate and get situated’.
She said she wasn’t even planning to evacuate until her husband, a member of the US Navy who is stationed in Hawaii, called and urged them to evacuate.
‘He called and all he said was, ”I saw the hurricane and you guys need to leave,”’ she said. she
Now she has her husband to thank for the push to go north and stumble upon the golden ticket.
Hatfield (right) won $10,000 from the $5 Diamond Dazzler scratch-off in North Carolina. Her daughters (left) pose with the check
Hatfield said she thought she was reading the ticket wrong, until her oldest daughter (center) looked at it and screamed
‘I thought maybe I was looking at it wrong so I had my oldest daughter look at it,’ Hatfield told ABC News. ‘She started screaming and we all started screaming.’
The mom drove with the winning ticket to her destination in Virginia. She said she kept it in her wallet and kept checking for fear of losing the thousands.
On Tuesday, Hatfield accepted a check for $6,951, the amount she received after federal and state taxes.
Luckily, her home only experienced minor damage and lost power.
Today, she is still making her way back to Florida with her three daughters and lucky fortune.
The family will use the winnings to decorate and get settled into their new home in Florida