A Scots grandad has told how he cheated death twice in the past 14 months before scooping a share of £1m from the Postcode Lottery.
Tommy Gilmour is one of 15 neighbours of G83 8SY in Balloch, Dunbartonshire, to collect a cheque of £66,666 from their massive win.
The 71-year-old was hit by a bus on December 3 and was left with a fractured knee and shattered left wrist.
Clutching his prize with his left arm still in a sling, Tommy said: “I had an argument with a bus. I was crossing a street and nothing was coming in any direction. I crossed over and I was halfway over and then a single decker bus was on top of me.
“I flew through the air and landed on a kerb. I did judo when I was younger and I did a break fall.”
The pensioner struck the bus windscreen and tried to break the impact with his arm.
The former Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park ranger revealed it was a metal-strapped Citizen given to him by his son that bore the brunt of the collision and prevented his hand from being ripped clean off.
He said: “The only thing that saved my hand from coming off was the watch my son gave me for my 60th birthday. They say it will take at least six months to heal.
“No one could believe that I walked away from it.”
He was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery to have a titanium plate put in his wrist.
Just one year earlier Tommy was brought back from the dead after an operation to remove small glands from his neck went wrong in October 2023.
He said: “I went in for a simple operation and when I was on the operating table, they put a tube down my throat, and I suffocated. I was gone.
“They spent three hours reviving me and then put me into an induced coma for 10 hours. When I woke up all the family were there and I said, ‘What are you guys all doing here?’”
He joked that his wife Maureen, 68, is terrified of what might happen to him next, saying: “She’s ordered some bubble wrap from Amazon.”
Now Tommy’s run of bad luck has come to an end, he said of the life-changing win: “I can’t believe it.
“This is tremendous, we weren’t expecting that amount of money. And it’s nice to win with so many others in the street.
The couple who share three children and five grandchildren hope to spend their winnings on a new automatic car, a trip abroad and helping their family.
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