JERUSALEM (CNN) -- It was supposed to be a
pleasant surprise, but turned into the shock of a lifetime.
A woman in Tel Aviv, Israel, gave her elderly mother a new
mattress as a surprise gift, throwing out the old tattered bed her
mother had slept on for decades. The gesture ended up bankrupting
Annat's mother, who had stuffed her savings of nearly $1 million
inside her old bed for decades, Annat told Israel Army Radio.
A massive search is under way at the city dump, where security
has been beefed up to keep out treasure-seekers who have heard
Annat's story in Israeli media.
Annat, who did not want to reveal the rest of her name, told
Israel Army Radio that she woke up early Sunday to get a good deal
on a new mattress as a surprise for her mother.
She fell asleep that night, exhausted after lugging up the new
mattress and hauling down the old one to be taken out with the
trash.
When her mother realized the next day what her daughter had
done, she told her that she had been using the mattress to stash
away her life savings and had nearly $1 million padding the inside
of the worn-out mattress.
Annat ran downstairs, but it was too late. The garbage truck had
already taken away the money-stuffed mattress.
Annat alerted the two major dump sites in the Israeli city in an
effort to locate the bed, but so far she has had no luck. Yitchak
Burba, one of the dump site managers, told Army Radio that he and
his men are working relentlessly to try to help Annat find the
million-dollar mattress among the tons of garbage at the
landfill.
The publicity has triggered a wave of people also trying to find
the mattress and its contents for themselves. Burba has increased
security around the dump to keep them out.
Annat told Army Radio that when her mother realized her
queen-sized bank had been tossed, she told her to "'leave it.'"
"'The heart is crying but you know we could have been in a car
accident or had a terminal disease,'" Annat said her mother told
her.
Annat is also taking the situation in stride.
"It's a very, very sad story but I've been through worse," she
told Army Radio. "It's a matter of proportions in life ... people
need to know how to accept the good and the bad in life."