For a few thrilling hours on Wednesday, a nurse in California believed that she was a millionaire.
The woman -- who works at the Park Avenue Health & Wellness Center, a nursing home in Pomona, and is a mother to seven children -- had reportedly received a phone call from her son telling her she was one of the winners of the $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot.
Quoting an administrator at the nursing home, the NY Daily News says the nurse’s son had gone “so far as to send her a picture of what he said was the winning ticket.” Photos taken at the facility show employees celebrating the woman’s apparent stroke of luck:
On Thursday, several news outlets reported that the nurse was indeed one of three Powerball winners. A Daily Mail report said the 62-year-old woman had still “finished her shift” after learning of her “win.” (This tidbit was later confirmed by BuzzFeed.)
As the day wore on, however, it emerged that these early reports were false. According to the NY Daily News, the whole thing was a “prank” pulled by the nurse’s son.
The woman’s daughter told the Los Angeles Times that the family “had not won the prize,” and reports suggesting otherwise had been a “misunderstanding based on a photo that was sent to her mother.”
The daughter said the whole debacle was “embarrassing” for her family.
Josh Nass, a spokesman for philanthropist Shlomo Rechnitz, the owner of the nursing home, told BuzzFeed that he had been unable to contact the woman after news of the reported prank emerged.
“If it is indeed the case that someone pulled a prank on her, that’s reprehensible,” Nass said. “She’s a wonderful lady, and an incredible employee.”
Rechnitz had purchased Powerball tickets for each of his 15,000 employees in 80 health care facilities, BuzzFeed said.
Three people, overcoming odds of 1 in 292 million, have a claim to the record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot, lottery officials say. The winning tickets were sold in California, Florida and Tennessee.
At the time of this writing, none of the winners' identities have been released.