COVID has taken a lot away from a lot of people the last couple of years. Here's a real bummer of a story of an Iowa family with some bad luck, who might have lost out on $100,000 because of the pandemic.

KWWL reports, via CNN, that back in November of 2019, Bradly Hanawalt's wife purchased a lottery ticket. It sat in the car until February of 2021, and it seems they waited a bit too long to try to redeem the ticket that turned out to be worth 100-grand. In the interim, Carla came down with COVID-19 herself, right around the time the ticket was set to "expire" on November 30, 2020.

They lobbied the Iowa Lottery for an extension, but no dice, as Lottery executive Mary Neuenbauer noted her office had not officially closed down during the pandemic, thus the expiration date was firm. She also expressed her sympathy for the circumstances but essentially said the rules are the rules and they can't dole out the prize money after the ticket expires. As they always do, the Iowa Lottery had put out reminders to any winners from lottery tickets, who in this case turned out to be the Hanawalts, to claim it before it was going to be expired.

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For their part, Bradly says he and his wife Carla are bummed but are OK because they didn't have the money before and they don't have it now. But, Bradly says, with 6 daughters the cash would have been extremely helpful. The other notable part of this story is that Bradly is an Afghanistan vet who came home from serving his country and is living life in a wheelchair.

We thank Bradly for his service first and foremost and we'll keep you posted on whether the Iowa Lottery decides to make an exception to their rule. But for now, Bradly Hanawalt says he feels blessed to have a happy, healthy family given all that's gone on the past year and is focusing more on that than the money he missed out on.

The moral of the story from Bradly Hanawalt's perspective: keep your lottery tickets in a safe place, check them, and check them often. If you win, claim it before it's too late.

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