Florida Senior hit $590 million lottery on Quick Pick and line cut

UPDATE
Gloria Mackenzie, Lottery Jackpot Winner, Thankful To Mindy Crandell, Woman Who Let Her Cut In Line
Gloria C. Mackenzie, Powerball Lottery Winner, Claims $590 Million May 18 Jackpot
The Huffington Post
Posted: 06/05/2013

"While in line at Publix, another lottery player was kind enough to let me go ahead of them in line to purchase the winning Quick Pick ticket," Mackenzie said in the statement.

A Florida woman has claimed a $590 million jackpot, state lottery officials announced at a press conference Wednesday.

Gloria C. Mackenzie, 84, bought the winning ticket for the May 18 drawing, which was the largest jackpot ever in the multi-state lottery's history. Mackenzie did not appear at the news conference.

Florida ABC affiliate WFTS reported that a woman claiming to have won the multimillion dollar jackpot reported to the state's lottery headquarters around noon on Wednesday.
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Soldier from Zephyrhills wounded by IED in Afghanistan

Bomb blast injures Zephyrhills High grad
By EDDIE DANIELS
The Tampa Tribune
Published: October 11, 2012

Former Zephyrhills High student Tyler Jeffries, right front, was injured when an IED he stepped on with his left foot exploded Oct. 6 in Afghanistan.

WESLEY CHAPEL
Dotty Campbell was driving to work Saturday morning when she answered her cell phone.

It was her father. He had news about her nephew Tyler Jeffries.

"I had to pull over because I was devastated," she said Wednesday.

Jeffries, a 2007 Zephyrhills High School graduate and an Army infantry member serving in Afghanistan, was injured Saturday when he stepped on an improvised explosive device, or IED.

The explosion took off a portion of the 23-year-old's left leg above the knee as well as a part of his right leg below the knee, Campbell said. Wednesday morning, surgeons at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., removed the remainder of his left leg at the hip.

Jeffries, who was deployed in April for his first tour of duty, will spend the next few days in the hospital's intensive care unit. read more here

Dying Veteran Says Busy VA Hospital Refused to Admit Him

Oct 16, VCS in the News: Dying Veteran Says Busy VA Hospital Refused to Admit Him

William R. Levesque


St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

Oct 16, 2008


"It's a disgrace," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, an advocacy group frequently critical of the VA. "And it's difficult for veterans who are very ill to fight a big bureaucracy alone."

October 15, 2008, Zephyrhills, Florida — Veteran James Carroll is supposed to get free and complete medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The trick is getting in the door. Carroll, 64 and dying of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, said the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa has repeatedly refused to admit him for a reason that is no fault of his own:

Haley is too crowded.

So the Zephyrhills resident said he has been forced to get care outside the VA medical system, personally accumulating thousands of dollars in medical expenses that he thinks the VA should pay.

The VA refuses.

Some veteran advocates say Carroll is one of many veterans around the nation who have been denied access to VA health care and then forced to foot their own medical bills when they seek care elsewhere.

"I was a good soldier," said Carroll, an Air Force veteran who served four years ending in 1968. "I did what I was told. I don't want to break the VA's bank. I don't want anything that should not be mine. But the government needs to keep its word to me."

Carroll has been forced out of his rental home for lack of rent money. He is living in a trailer on family property near his sister.
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/11409