A woman who won CAN$10 million in a Lotto 6-49 draw last month has recovered from a heart attack believed to have been brought on by the number of people asking her for money

6/49 health risks: heart attack of lottery big winner

The woman who won CAN$10 million in a Lotto 6-49 draw last month has recovered from a heart attack believed to have been brought on by the number of people asking her for money, reported The London Free Press News, The Halifax Herald Limited, quoting The Canadian Press, and CalgarySun.com.

GamblingGates informed about the lone May 22 winning ticket, the largest in Atlantic Canada so far this year, and the winner, 43-year-old Ferne Hawley.  

"I'm feeling much better now," Ms. Hawley said from her home in New Waterford on Tuesday. "Now I just tear up the letters, and if anyone calls I tell them they need to talk to my husband."

The week before buying the ticket, Ms. Hawley lost her job at a local Home Hardware.

Between her and her long-time partner, Tom Young, there are five children in the family. She said she worried about paying the bills.

When she travelled to Moncton to pick up her winnings, she didn't even have enough money to pay the deposit on the hotel room. The manager let her stay after seeing the winning ticket. "But you know," she said Tuesday, "the second I got home I told Tom I wish I could give it all back."

That's because when she returned, people were lined up at her door looking for money, letters were jammed in her mailbox and her phone kept ringing. The hysteria at the Hawley home became so intense, Ms. Hawley said, the family had to pack up and go into hiding in London, Ont. "We couldn't handle it," she said. In London, Ms. Hawley suffered a heart attack. She said the doctors there told her it was caused by stress.

Ms. Hawley, said there is no history of heart disease in her family and that she is in good physical shape. She spent five days in hospital. On Friday, she returned to New Waterford and visited her local doctor.

"I thought (the money) was a blessing. I had a bag of bills to pay off," she said. "But when you land in the hospital, you realize quickly what money doesn't buy." She said she feels blessed to be well again. She also said that now that she's back in town, she's wary of even answering the phone.

When she picked up her $10 million cheque in Moncton, Ms. Hawley told the Atlantic Lotto Corp. she planned to buy a new home and a retrofitted car for her sister, who suffers with spina bifida.

On Tuesday, however, she said the only immediate plans she has is to travel with her husband. She said she hasn't decided where they'll go.

So the stress of a big win followed by hysteria can cause a seemingly healthy person supported by her or his family to suffer a heart attack.

Psychologists explain how stressful winning could be (see GamblingGates.com article).

The other big risk of winning a colossal jackpot seems to be loneliness (especially for singles). Your life is completely changed, but you dare not tell anybody about your big win. So you go on pretending to be ordinary when you know secretly that you are not.

You may also lose all aspirations when you find that all your previous ones can now be fulfilled.

A leading consumers group in Italy has warned in 2003 that players become addicted to lotteries.

One day, the hunt was on for Italy's new millionaire to find out what he or she will do with the cash. 

"I wouldn't tell anybody about my winning because you would risk someone kidnapping a member of your family - it's a problem," one Italian told. 

As we can see, in certain unfortunate circumstances a big winner can suffer a heart attack…