The story of the garbage man Michael Carroll won millions and remained in poverty
It is said that people do not appreciate what they got without difficulty. There is some truth in this, as the story of Briton Michael Carroll clearly shows. Working as a simple scavenger, he won a huge fortune in the lottery and could not properly dispose of it. Having spent all the money for several years ineptly, Carroll returned to his profession again.
Michael Carroll was born in 1983 in the English city of Swoffem in the family of a military man and a cannery worker. His family was not prosperous - when the boy was a little over a year old, his father was behind bars. When Michael was seven, his parents divorced.
No one took care of the child, as one fact from his biography speaks eloquently. Young Carroll learned to read and write only at the age of 13. And they taught him not at school, but at the Hallsley Bay Correctional House, where he ended up due to shoplifting. After spending several years behind bars, Michael was released and got a job as a garbage man.
Obviously, fortune was not indifferent to the reckless guy. At the age of 19, Carroll bought a lottery ticket, which brought him a prize of 9.7 million pounds (932 million rubles). It seems that life is good. Even on the interest on this money deposited in a bank account, Michael could live in clover for the rest of his life. But the young man failed to properly dispose of the gift of fate.
At first, the newly-minted millionaire behaved quite reasonably. He planned to purchase a mansion by the lake so that he could fish and enjoy life. Michael gave his mother and sister a million pounds each, which characterizes him as a good person. But then he broke loose and began to spend money right and left.
Carroll bought expensive jewelry and luxury cars, threw grand parties and spent large sums on women. With a complete lack of taste and sense of proportion, Michael evoked ambiguous emotions in those around him. Journalists closely followed his incessant revelry, calling him the "King of the gopniks" ("King of Chavs").
Very soon, the young man was the owner of a fleet of 80 expensive cars, several expensive mansions and an incredible amount of precious trinkets. But the worst thing was that Michael felt like the master of life and turned into a brazen brawler. In June 2005, he was arrested by the police for hooliganism and damage to property. Carroll drove around the city in a van drunk to smithereens and fired steel balls from bearings at shop windows and cars.
He managed to break several dozen glasses and mutilate several cars until he was detained. The court sentenced the "King of the gopniks" to 240 hours of corrective labor and a hefty fine. But money meant nothing to Michael, and life taught him nothing. Less than a year later, in February 2006, he beat several teenagers with a baseball bat. Despite the efforts of lawyers, the court put him in jail for 9 months.
Barely freed, Carroll was again on the radar of the police. This time, he was running drunk through the streets in his gold-plated Isuzu SUV. In everyday life, Michael also behaved not in the best way. He arranged large-scale drinking parties with music and turned the courtyard of his house into a real dump. Around the guy's home were parked 70 broken cars and mountains of tires were lying around. Everyone in the neighborhood was "delighted" with such a neighbor.
But soon the beautiful life of Michael ended. It took him only a few years to spend a huge amount. One day, armed robbers broke into his house and demanded cash. Their production was 130 thousand pounds (12.5 million rubles). It was Carroll's last money. In 2010, he again went to work as a scavenger and has been doing this business ever since.
It remains to add that Michael Carroll is still very lucky. There are many examples when big wins led to irreparable tragedies.