Conn. bride rescues family from house fire

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A Connecticut family has been saved from a house fire by a new bride who rushed inside through thick smoke while wearing her wedding gown.

Officials say Georgette Clemons had just left her wedding reception Sunday evening when she spotted smoke coming from a Bridgeport home.

Clemons got out of the car she was riding in and ran into the home. She says a woman was yelling about her animals and didn't want to leave, so she had to pull her out.

As firefighters arrived and battled the blaze after members of the Eitelberg family were rescued, Clemons was nearby folding her blackened wedding dress.

Clemons says she messed up her shoes, but says that's no big deal because everyone is safe.

Information from: Connecticut Post, http://www.connpost.com

Conn. man's last lotto ticket wins $10M for widow

DANBURY, Conn. – On the day that Donald Peters died, he unknowingly provided financial security for his wife of 59 years and their family.

Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury.

On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband's death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers.

"I'm numb," Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill.

Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death.

"I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner," she said. "I had no idea how much it was."

She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she'd won $10 million.
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