KEY POINTS:
With a rubbish truck bearing down on them, a Whakatane family desperately ransacked their waste bin yesterday to recover a winning Lotto ticket.
With only seconds to spare before their prize was lost forever, they emerged clutching their tickets and headed off to Paper Plus to discover they had scooped an early Christmas present - a new Audi Cabriolet car.
Maureen Good, Lotto manager at the shop on The Strand, said there were whoops and yells from the family when they realised they had won.
They had watched the draw on television and thrown their tickets away believing they had missed out.
"The woman's daughter heard on the radio that there was a winner from Paper Plus and went back and told her mum," Mrs Good said.
"The tickets were in the rubbish on the kerbside and they had to race to find them as the truck was coming down the street."
- NZPA
