Cancer survivor wins $250,000 in lottery — and plans to pay it forward

Nicholas Ruth, 19, won $250,000 in the Maryland Mega Millions lottery on Friday. The leukaemia survivor — Ruth has been in remission for seven years — now plans to "give back" to the local organizations that helped him during his cancer battle.

"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," Ruth told the Maryland Lottery.

Among those organizations are the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Believe in Tomorrow, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation which sent him on a cruise.

After taxes, Ruth will take him just over $165,000. In addition to donating his winnings to charitable organizations, he plans to pay off his car and put some of his winnings in savings.

"People keep saying I deserve it and what I went through, but there's people far off worse than what I went through that can use the money more than me and I'm just glad I can help them out," Ruth told NBC 17 of his decision to be generous with his windfall.

"Anyone that plays the Maryland Lottery — if they win, we're thrilled. Nick is exceptional, though. He's a nice young man. He's a hard worker, and he's a cancer survivor willing to give back, so he's really an exceptional winner, and we're thrilled that he won," said Maryland Lottery spokeswoman Erica Palmisano.

Ruth, a graduate of Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, recently applied to become a police officer.

"I believe that things happen in threes: I won this huge amount of money, the Ravens won [Sunday night], and I'm hoping I'll get this job," he told lottery officials. "That would really be icing on the cake!"