Cancer survivors wins lottery

BALTIMORE, Md. - A little over a year after he began playing the Lottery, Nick Ruth struck it rich. The 19-year-old cancer survivor claimed $250,000 at the Lottery Headquarters in Baltimore Monday after the tickets he bought last Friday were certified as the winning stubs.

Ruth told Lottery officials that he didn't check the tickets, which he purchased at a 7-11 at 8507 Loch Raven Boulevard in Towson, until late Saturday evening.  After seeing that five of his six numbers matched the winning numbers, he checked them again and again. 

"I couldn't believe it," he said, "so I asked my mom to look at the ticket. Once we figured out how much I'd won, we started to run all over the house screaming.  After we calmed down, we looked at each other and started screaming and running again."

When asked what he was going to do with his windfall, the Archbishop Curley High School graduate, who has been in remission from leukemia for seven years, said:  "As a cancer survivor, it is really important for me to give back.  I want to 'pay forward' what some wonderful local organizations did for me, so I am definitely going to donate money to cancer organizations."  He also plans to pay off his car and put money in his bank account. 

He is also anxiously awaiting word about a law-enforcement position for which he recently applied.