Woman hits a lucky streak after tumour surgery

London: Having undergone a successful operation in the United States to remove a tumour on her parathyroid gland, Sonia Davies was feeling lucky. So convinced was Davies of her good fortune that she rang her daughter at home in Monmouth and urged her to buy a lottery ticket.

As a result of that prescient phone call, her family are now celebrating winning the 61.1 million pounds EuroMillions jackpot.

Davies’s daughter, Stephanie, 23, said she would not have bought the six Lucky Dip tickets last Friday had it not been for her mother. “I thought mum was mad calling me from holiday [after the operation], but they were so insistent I knew we had to do it,” she said on Wednesday, as the family gathered to celebrate their win.

Davies, 53, had been diagnosed with the tumour earlier this year and found a world-leading treatment centre in Florida close to the place she was visiting on holiday. She said: “They told me that if it hadn’t been removed it would have been fatal – at the very least I would have lost my voice within a year. They managed to give me the all-clear straight after the operation, so as you would imagine, we were on cloud nine.” She added: “I had my surgery on the Wednesday and I suppose the Friday was the first day I felt ‘I am cured’. I felt good, it didn’t hurt any more.”

She said her boyfriend, Keith Reynolds, 55, suggested they might be on a winning streak and should buy some tickets for the EuroMillions rollover. “He was convinced that we were the luckiest people on the planet and definitely on a winning streak after the success of my op so we called up my daughter, Courtney, to ask her to go and buy a ticket,” said Davies.

“She was travelling and wasn’t about to change her plans so we called Stephanie instead as something told us we needed to get a ticket.”

Despite dashing off with her boyfriend Steve Powell to buy the tickets from the Overmonnow Garage in Monmouth before it closed on Friday, Davies did not check the numbers until the early hours of Sunday.

Powell said: “Steph remembered she had bought a ticket. She said ‘if I shout down it means we’ve won the lottery and if not, I’ve gone to bed’. She came down crying.”

Davies said: “As soon as I saw that ticket, I had my hands over my eyes, I was shaking, I was crying. I said to Steve ‘for once in my life I am not even joking’. We checked the ticket about 10 times over.”

She quickly phoned her mother, who was waiting to board her delayed flight home. “I was worried there was a problem,” said Davies.

“All I could hear was Steph sobbing down the phone and the odd muffled word. I thought she’d told me she’d lost her dog. “Then I heard Steve shouting ‘we’ve won pounds 61 million’ We huddled around a bin while we checked the numbers and realised we really had won. I can remember saying ‘if we don’t make it home just make sure you spend it all’. It was the longest flight of our life.”

The winners are still mulling over what to do with their 12,220,488.58 pounds shares of the jackpot.

Davies and Powell bought their first home together at Christmas, so they will finish the decorating and perhaps take a trip to the Caribbean.

Courtney, 19, plans to finish her psychology degree at the University of Southampton – though she might splash out on an electric toothbrush and a new car to replace her ageing VW.

Davies and Reynolds, who live near Ross-on-Wye, will share their win with family and friends – although a new oak carport is on the cards.