Maple Ridge firefighter John Haydu had $1 million in his wallet for six months and didn’t know it.
Now, as the lottery winner works through his last few shifts with Maple Ridge Fire and Rescue before retirement, he is $1 million richer.
“I still don’t believe it, but it’s real,” said Haydu. “It’s an awesome feeling.”
Back in May, Haydu bought a Lotto Max ticket at the Save-On-Foods in Mission, and tucked it into his wallet. And there it stayed, because he rarely carries the wallet.
“I never go anywhere with a wallet – everyone’s got a phone and tap,” he explained.
But on Friday, Oct. 4, he needed to put insurance on his 1961 VW Bug, and he took his wallet with him.
Afterwards, he stopped at Freshco to buy his great dane a couple of cans of food. As he walked in, he noticed a person checking lottery tickets at a BCLC scanner, and was reminded to check his own.
“Congratulations big winner” read the scanner, and it made the sound of a herald’s horn.
There was no dollar value.
He asked a cashier behind the counter to double check if for him, and she got excited for him. She printed off the amount, and he was stunned, slowly counting “a whole bunch of zeroes.”
“Oh my God, did you just win?” said a complete stranger, who started hugging him.
With his hands shaking, he took the ticket and the printout to the car, took a photo of it, and texted the picture to his three daughters. Haydu lost his wife in 2018, and is especially close with his girls.
Their calls started rolling in. They weren’t sure whether to believe him. He didn’t entirely trust it either, until they called and confirmed it with the BC Lotto Corp., and he heard “John, this is real.”
Haydu has been a firefighter for 29 years, and soon his phone was blowing up with firefighters who had heard the news.
“Everyone is really happy for me,” he said.
He said a lottery win wouldn’t send him into retirement if it wasn’t mandatory after his 60th birthday, which is coming at the end of the month.
“I love my job. I love going to work,” he said. “If I was 50, I would still go to work.”
His plans for retirement were not extravagant before the win.
“I just wanted to spend time with my kids and grandkids, and I like to camp and be outdoors.”
Now he can add some bucket list adventures, and he wants regular whole-family vacations.
“We’ll pick somewhere – Hawaii, for a week, all of us,” he said. “My girls are everything to me, and my grandkids… beyond everything,” he said.
Haydu has also been a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, and plans to fly into New York state to see his team play live in their home stadium for the first time.
On Nov. 8 he will have a ceremony called a final walkout at Hall One, where his brothers in the fire department will turn out in their dress uniforms, lower a flag to give to him, and give him a final ride in a fire truck.
A friend summed it up nicely in social media: “Congratulations on your almost retirement! And way to go out with a bang!”
He may not be done winning. Haydu still has a few tickets that he hasn’t scanned yet.