Nurse Wins $18-Million Lotto Jackpot

Three days before hitting the $18-million state lottery jackpot, Hilarietta Ramirez was like a lot of others: an exhausted working parent dreaming of a break.

“I was picking up the kids at school and I felt really tired,” recalled Ramirez, who has worked nights for the last decade as an intensive care unit nurse at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar. “I was just saying ‘I wish I could win the lottery.’ ”

Her dream became reality Wednesday as state lottery officials in Van Nuys confirmed Ramirez had correctly matched all six Super Lotto numbers in last Saturday’s drawing. She opted for an immediate $9.4 million instead of the 26 annual payments that would have brought her the full amount, which means she gets about $5.4 million after the Internal Revenue Service takes its cut for federal income taxes.

A mother of two children, Ramirez said she and her husband, Mars, a civil engineer with the city of Los Angeles, can’t fathom their sudden windfall and have not given a lot of thought to how to spend it.

But after returning from a celebratory dinner Wednesday, Ramirez said they were thinking of sharing some of their winnings with their Roman Catholic parish, donating some to help the homeless and helping out family members in need.

“I’m still in shock,” Ramirez said. “I just can’t believe it. I was just thinking, how is this happening to me?”

But how it happened appeared to be that perfect combination of fate, luck and in the Ramirez’s case, a slight change in routine.

While traveling to Las Vegas for her sister’s wedding last Saturday, the couple stopped at Hani’s Chevron station on Palmdale Road in Victorville instead of the gas station they usually use.

Ramirez decided to spend her $5 on a Quick Pick instead of on her regular combination of numbers. But the couple did not discover right away that they had won.

Ramirez finally glanced at a newspaper Tuesday, thinking at first she had only four of the six numbers needed to win, then realizing with a second look that she had hit the jackpot.

Her husband returned home, she said, to find her shaken and pale.

“He looked at me and said I was pale and ‘What is wrong with you?’ ” she said. “When I told him I won the lottery, he didn’t believe me. Then he checked the Internet.”

Ramirez said she called in sick Wednesday, telling her boss she had a migraine. Beyond that, she said, she wasn’t sure whether she would quit her job.

In addition to the Ramirez family, Hani’s Chevron, where Ramirez bought her Quick Pick ticket, will get a $90,000 cut.