I remember a story back in 2013 about a guy who threw away his hard drive and his bitcoin wallet inside the drive had 4 million USD worth of Bitcoins(back in December 2013 the bitcoin price reached a 1200 USD ATH).There were many stories about such people,so I guess that your story isn't fake.
Most of the Bitcoin "horror stories" are about people forgetting their wallet passwords and losing access to BTC worth thousands of dollars,just because they can't remember a password.
I can't imagine myself being on a similar situation, it's complicated and unquestionably difficult to handle. By just seeing the amount of money he had lost, it's regretful because your assets are wasted for nothing. It means that there's a great chance that the story happened, it's hard to envision how horrible it feels because of losing something that has a great value. I have read some stories of people who doubt the worth of bitcoin and end up remorseful because of not being able to keep it properly.