AUSTIN (KXAN) – A group of 10 co-workers from Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth made the trip to Austin on Friday to claim their money.

It was an unexpected Mother’s Day gift to the group when their lottery pool hit the “big one” for $21,389,076 on Saturday night. The winning numbers in the Texas Lottery’s “Lotto Texas” game were 13-36-38-45-46-49.

Each person gets $1.6 million after taxes.

The Quick Pick ticket was sold at the Crossroad Shell station, according to lottery officials.

The group of employees decided in December to form a pool to buy lottery tickets, each putting in $5 per week.

“We’ve been doing it since the first of January,” said Mario Mercado, one of the winners. “And next thing you know, come Mother’s Day morning, we hit it. We hit it. I just couldn’t believe it. I was so excited. I was screaming. My wife thought the house was on fire.

“I started going down the list of numbers and calling my friends and saying, ‘Hey, guys, we hit the lotto. We hit the lotto!'”

Mercado said they all agreed to meet at Billy Minors in Fort Worth and keep a low profile until they could get to the Texas Lottery office in Austin. They chartered a bus and headed to Austin on Friday.

““I haven’t had any sleep,” Mercado said. “I’ve literally had to go to my doctor to get some pills to calm me down. My wife has been guarding this ticket with her life and it’s just been pretty crazy, pretty crazy.”

But Mercado said he knows he has to be smart about spending the money, and has enlisted the help of an advisor.

“I’m going to be reasonable about it,” he said. “I don’t want to end up on one of these stories how the lottery ruined my life, you know. You see people win the lottery and you think, ‘Oh, they got all these problems.’ I thought to myself, ‘I would love to have some of those problems.’ Now I’m kind of thinking, nah, I don’t know. That’s a lot of responsibility when you’ve got that kind of money. You’ve got to be smart about it.”