Abbigail Bugenske became the first winner of Ohio’s $1 million “Vax-a-Million” lottery, a campaign started by the Republican Govt, on Wednesday.
At a press conference, 22-year-old Bugenske said she got a call from DeWine himself telling her she was a winner.
“I was screaming enough that my parents thought that I was crying and that something was wrong,” she recalled, according to media reports. “When I started yelling that I had won $1 million and I was going to be a millionaire, they told me to calm down and make sure it wasn’t a prank before I really started freaking out.”
As she couldn’t believe that and said that it was a crazy night, Bugenske recalled, she also said that she wanted to use the money to help charities, invest and buy a used car.
Bugenske, a mechanical engineer who works for GE Aviation, said if there is any doubts of the phone call being a prank subsided once she began receiving Instagram and Facebook requests from strangers. That tipped her off that the news had been announced publicly.
“That was it for me,” she said.
The Vax-a-Million drive has increased vaccination rates by 45 per cent in the state, DeWine said, as noted by CNN. About 2,758,470 Ohio residents joined the drawing for the $1 million payouts.
According to Bugenske, she got a Moderna vaccine shot.
“Vaccines have always been in my medical history. It was a pretty easy decision to go and get the vaccine as fast as I could,” Bugenske said. “I would encourage anyone to get the vaccine. If winning $1 million isn’t enough, I don’t know what would be.”
Post Your Comments