Couple's prize home miracle win | A Current Affair

We meet a lot of people doing it tough, but Deanna and Chris's story truly hits home.While watching his partner and mum battle cancer at the same time, Chris's dreams of home ownership disappeared into a mountain of bills.They needed a miracle to save their future and that's exactly what they got.

We get a phone call probably every time there is a draw offering more tickets and normally That's all it is.

It's just like you never expect that kind of news.

Well, I didn't think it would ever happen for us either, but here we are.

We all wonder how we'd react if we got that winning phone call.Chris Down almost missed it.

I was at work when I received the phone call, but I couldn't answer the phone straight away because I was up the top of a ladder.

Chris had bought tickets in a Marta Prize home raffle, but assumed the call was just another sales pitch.Are you down your ladder now?

I am.I'm very safe and sound now.

Then the moment Chris and his partner Deanna's life changed forever.

Chris, you have won main prize.

What the...

Your total prize package that you have just won is $4 ,592 ,104.Wow.I'm shaking.

This is the four -bedroom, two -bathroom, waterfront mansion Chris and Deanna now call home.I got a couple of hours before Deanna got home, so you had a bit of time to think about how you're going to break that news.

Yep.After we finished dinner, I just got out a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses and broke the news to her.

When he started telling me we won the prize, but we also won the house, they took off their shoes.

couldn't have come at a better time for the couple, after Diana was dealt a shock diagnosis back in 2024.

When you heard the words triple negative breast cancer, what was that like for you?So when I received the call from the doctor saying, yes it is cancer, it was heartbreaking.

Nobody ever wants to hear that news and I just knew that it was going to be a long road ahead.

The couple had been diligently saving to buy their first home, a dream they were forced to abandon as Deanna underwent 12 months of chemotherapy and radiation at Brisbane's Martyr Hospital.

It's harder and harder to be able to save that deposit and it felt like that goalpost was moving further and further away.

CEO of the Mata Foundation, Andrew Thomas.

They're absolutely proof that real people win these prizes and they're proof too about the work that Mata does all across Australia to introduce clinical trials to improve medical research.

Today, Chris and Deanna are having a sticky beak around the Mata's new prize home at Montville on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

I'm very happy with the one we have.This one is amazing.It's big and stunning too.But, you know, the other one was meant to be for us.

One thing is for sure, though.There's plenty of people hoping their number comes up.Now what did you say when you walked out here and saw the view?

Oh man, I looked at the view behind us and I just said shut up and take my money.

You know they'll be able to get up, have their cup of tea, come out here, do their laps in the 25 meter pool, have their friends over in the tepanyaki.hut before going in and watching the footy in the theatre.It's a dream for people.

Now cancer -free, Diana says she's forever grateful to the doctors and nurses at The Martyr who saved her life.

They probably won't remember every single patient, but I will remember them, you know.

You have to be in it to win it, and at least if you don't win it, the money is going to a cause that's worthy.