A high school janitor won 2 million dollars from a scratch-off ticket bought in Gurnee.
Dave Martinez stopped at a local gas station Nov. 19 where he bought the winning lottery ticket.
“I started scratching off on the dining room table and thought it was just a hundred thousand at first and then I looked at it again and it said a hundred thousand times twenty and was just mind-boggling," Martinez said.
"I was jumping up and down and my wife was still half asleep,” he added.
Martinez has worked as a custodian in the New Trier High School district since 1982. The staff has nicknamed him "Speedy" for how quickly he moves and gets his work done.
"Oh yeah, they call me speedy," he said. "When they ask for a task to be done I go take care of it as soon as possible."
Martinez plans to eventually visit Hawaii, take in a NASCAR race in Daytona, and beginning some home improvement projects.
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Martinez's coworkers say the hard-working maintenance man deserves every penny.
"My first thought was it oculdn't have happened to a nice guy," said Dave Conway, facilities manager at New Trier.
His recent good fortune aside, Martinez has no plans to quit his job at the high school.
"I still enjoy working here with the teachers and students and faculty and my co-workers and stuff," Martinez said.
