The Man Who Died, Revived, and Won the Lottery Twice

Some people are just cosmically lucky. Bill Morgan isn't one of them—he's in a category all his own.

In 1999, this Australian truck driver had a heart attack that left him clinically dead for over 14 minutes. Doctors managed to revive him, but he spent 12 days in a coma. When he woke up, he had zero brain damage. Zero. Most people don't walk away from that kind of ordeal, let alone unscathed.

The First Win

Morgan decided to celebrate his second chance at life the way any reasonable person would: by buying a scratch card. He won a Toyota Corolla worth roughly $27,000 AUD. Not bad for a guy who'd just cheated death.

But here's where it gets absolutely ridiculous.

The News Crew Shows Up

A local Melbourne TV station heard about Morgan's incredible luck—dead man wins car—and wanted to film a segment. They asked him to re-enact the moment he scratched off the winning ticket for the camera.

So Morgan walked back into the same shop, bought another scratch card, and won $250,000 on live television.

The footage is genuine. You can watch the news crew lose their minds in real-time as Morgan scratches off the card and realizes what just happened. His reaction is pure disbelief—because even he couldn't comprehend that kind of luck.

What Are the Odds?

Let's break down the statistical nightmare Morgan just pulled off:

• Surviving 14+ minutes of clinical death with no brain damage: extremely rare
• Winning a car on a scratch card: roughly 1 in 500,000
• Winning $250,000 on the very next card: approximately 1 in 4 million

The combined probability of all three events? Astronomically, impossibly, laughably low. Lottery statisticians probably wept.

The Aftermath

Morgan used his winnings to buy a house and marry his fiancée, Lisa Wells—who'd stuck by him through the whole death-and-coma situation. He'd proposed to her from his hospital bed, which suddenly seems like the least dramatic part of this story.

The Australian media went wild. Morgan became a minor celebrity, appearing on talk shows and in newspapers worldwide. People started calling him "the luckiest man alive," which feels like an understatement.

Some minor details vary across sources—the car's value is sometimes reported as low as $17,000 or as high as $30,000 AUD, likely due to exchange rates and whether taxes were included. But the core facts remain consistent: dead for 14 minutes, two lottery wins, one absolutely bonkers news broadcast.

Bill Morgan's story isn't just about luck. It's about defying every statistical probability in the span of a few weeks and having the whole thing caught on camera. Lightning struck twice, and someone filmed it both times.