Three Months.(The Talk of the Town)(New York State Mega Millions winner Jhon Gallego)

Last week, Jhon Gallego, one of the survivors of last month's crane collapse, took a drive through his old neighborhood, Turtle Bay, by the U.N. It was a sunny day, and he was being driven by his sister's boyfriend, Felipe Rodriguez. Gallego was in the front seat, wearing his only set of clothes: a black-and-white windbreaker and black track pants. Everything else had been destroyed by the crane, which fell from the top of a half-built high-rise, smashing the brownstone at 305 East Fiftieth Street where Gallego lived, on the second floor. Gallego had been watching TV when the crane hit. He was the last person pulled from the rubble, after being buried alive for three and a half hours. The News ran a picture of him being wheeled away on a stretcher: "CREWS RESCUE MIRACLE MAN."

Rodriguez stopped the car on Second Avenue. Gallego, who had just got out of the hospital, said he was feeling a little jumpy. "It's been weird, not being able to do the stuff you used to do," he said. This time of year, he said, he'd normally be training with the U.N. recreational soccer team. Rodriguez drove to a parking space near the pile of debris at 305 East Fiftieth. Gallego, who is half Colombian and half Portuguese, moved there four years ago; hanging out with the regulars at Fubar, on the building's ground floor, he learned English. "I miss the bar," he said. "All my old friends were there." The accident killed seven people--construction workers and one of Gallego's friends, Odin Torres, who had been staying with him that weekend.

Not everyone believes in fate, or karma, but Gallego has reason to think that impossible things have been happening to him. Right across the street from his old building was some evidence: a newsstand with a sign out front--"New York Lottery. WE HAD A WINNER!" The sign was from January 15th, two months before the accident. The winner was Gallego. He had won the New York State Mega Millions. "I was lucky," he said. Gallego, who was doing computer repair and selling things like eyeglasses on eBay, had been ...