No one can see the future — but sometimes, you might get a gut feeling about what's to come. And these 21 people insist that those gut feelings saved their lives.
A recent Reddit thread asked people to give examples of when their instinct proved to be correct, and they evaded death or injury because of it. The stories might make you listen closer to your own gut.
1. No one wants to be the kid who makes their friends drive slower — but it's worth it.
When I was around 18, I was on a backroad with some friends and a girl I didn't know was driving really fast. Now, I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and I have always enjoyed a calculated risk in the name of a good time, but on this occasion I told her to either slow the fuck down or let me out. I literally had to start screaming at her before she listened and slowed down.
A week later she crashed on that same stretch of road at 90mph, killing her, and the three passengers of her car. - Canadian_Neckbeard
2. Never get out of your car alone in the middle of nowhere.
I was driving a friend home late at night when I was around 21. She lived in a pretty rural area outside of St. Louis, MO and about a quarter mile from her house was an old abandoned farm and farm house. I always thought of this place as non-threatening as she told me she and her two sisters would go there as kids and they found an attic full of cool things, including a trunk of vintage woman’s clothing and old love letters. Like something out of a movie.
Okay, sounds fun:
Anyway, I’m driving her home and it’s a hot, humid Missouri summer and we have the windows open as the late night had offered some cool air. We are also singing at the top of our lungs. We pass the abandoned farm and I drop her off at her house. I wait long enough to see she makes it inside and I head back out the way I came. I’m driving along and I get to almost where the farm is and I see two things in the road. My danger meter goes off as I had just driven this road and there was nothing there. I put the windows up and make sure the doors are locked. I get closer and I realize the items are two car batteries, spaced out in the road(which was basically a one lane road) in a way that I would have to get out and move them to drive on the road. I immediately knew I wasn’t getting out of the car so I picked the side of the road that had the lesser ditch and I gunned it. I was driving a little SUV and remember feeling the car run over branches and things in the little ditch, but I just gunned it and got out of there. All the way home I felt creeped out and kept checking my rear view mirror. I called my friend the next morning and told her what had happened and we both agreed it was weird. Shortly after that I moved to another state and didn’t think much of it after that.
Nothing too crazy, but then:
Fast forward to 2-3 years later when I was back visiting my hometown. I randomly ran into my old friend and she ran up to me with wide eyes and grabbed my arms. She asked me if I remembered what I told her that night. I said yes and she proceeded to tell me that not too long after that had happened her family was awakened in the middle of the night to someone pounding on their sliding glass door. Her dad went to check and saw two naked, injured women and let them in and called 911. They had been abducted from St. Louis City(about 40 minutes away) by two men and brought to the old, abandoned farmhouse where the men tortured and raped them. The women somehow managed to get free and ran to the only light they could see, the light over my friends garage. They survived, but the men were never caught. There was evidence the men had been going there for a while. My friend was convinced they had put the batteries in the road to lure me out of the car. I’m just really glad my gut told me not to. - elzamay
3. It's always a van...
I almost got kidnapped once. I was like 23 or so.
I was walking down my street at a little after dusk. I saw a van approaching a little ahead, no lights on. Didn't think much of it due to the time of day.
The van slowed down and almost started creeping, as i was approaching this part of the sidewalk which had a tall solid wall fence to a community. This gave me some pause in that quick moment. For me to keep walking, I'd have to go between the wall and the van.
In the little time it took me to take a couple of steps, and as the van was getting close, i noticed that the side door was slowly sliding open.
Yikes:
The one thought in my mind was, why isn't the light turning on inside the van? When you open the door of a vehicle, the light should come on inside it. Unless you deliberately switch that off.
And I just ran to the median, I ran in front of the van and across the street... because if they're gonna have some use of roadkill me, have at it.... but they're not getting me in one glorious piece.
Immediately, the van took off like someone lit it on fire. From a slow crawl to full speed. As i looked after it to see the plates... I noticed it had no plates. And still no lights.
I called the police, of course. They sent cars out and didn't find the van. I never had anything like this happen again and I'm just an ordinary person, so i don't suspect it was targeted. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. - winterbird
4. Narrowly avoiding a tornado has to be crazy.
My now wife and I did the long distance thing in college, and I planned on doing my normal routine to visit her, leave Chicagoland in the morning, get to her early afternoon on Friday. Well I’m closing my store on Thursday night, and get a feeling I should leave that night. So I said ‘F it’ and left that night.
A little after lunch on Friday, tornado sirens go off. I don’t think anything of it until I head back home Sunday, and drive through a town about half hour north of her. It got lit up by the tornado. I quickly realize that I had left at my normal time, I woulda been smack dab in the middle of tornado. - jvac23
5. Eavesdropping saves lives!
Few years ago I was at a bar with a couple of friends. All was good, we were drinking and having fun.
All of sudden, we heard this discussion taking place just a couple of tables from us. Two guys decided to have a shouting/threat match.
I stopped everything to pay attention to them. My friends were making fun of me, saying I was gossipy.
And then:
One of the guys in the discussion got up and left. Immediately after he left I told my friends we had to go. Now. Let's gtfo now!
They didn't get why I was like that, but I'm their friends since forever, they reluctantly agreed.
We went to a different bar in a different neighborhood but I couldn't take my mind off of those two guys.
Here's where it gets nuts:
The next day, the news were talking about a bar fight. Apparently the guy who got up went home, grabbed a gun and came back for a drive by. Killed 4 people in the process.
My grandpa taught me to never ignore my gut and I couldn't be happier to have listened. - beardedalien013
6. Driving is so risky!
I was taking my mom to a follow up appointment from back surgery the month before. The freeway was closed due to a car accident and life flight was called to transport the people injured in the accident. The highway patrol was funneling everyone off of the freeway to the right side exit. I had the strongest feeling we needed to move to the left farthest lane, so I did.
And thank god:
No more than a minute after I moved over, a garbage truck came barreling down the freeway and crashed into the car that was in front of us in the other lane so fast that it lifted the front end of the truck and it landed on top of the car.
We were in a tiny sports car that would have crumpled like a tin can under the weight of a garbage truck and definitely would have killed my mom and me in a second. - skelenaton
7. Here's a fun new lung issue to worry about.
A pain in the lungs when I inhaled. I’ve never been stabbed, don’t know what it’s like but the pain should have been equal to it, if not worse.
It had happened before, years ago. Some hot water in the shower and the pain was gone.
But he didn't ignore it:
My wife (then girlfriend) insisted on going to ER. I insisted on hot water. “I feel like we should go and see a doctor”, she had said.
I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism on both lungs. Doctor said “1 or 2 more hours and you were gone”.
So yeah, I owe my wife one. - verpin_zal
8. A mom's gut instinct is the strongest one of all.
My mum knew something was wrong with me when I was younger, Drs didn't want to see me for another 2 weeks. Mum went into a blind rage over the phone telling them that she was taking me to get checked whether they liked it or not....
We got to the GP, he puts a stethoscope on my back and smells my breath. Then says "We need to get him to hospital NOW."
Turns out I have type 1 Diabetes and if I'd waited another day I would have died.
The breath part is due to the build up of Ketones in the blood. As I was in the severe stages of Diabetic Ketoacidosis - FracturedPixel
9. Some people's gut feelings help them get a diagnosis.
Lump in my right breast. 43 years old; clean mammogram 5 months earlier. I just knew. Four different doctors told me it was nothing and to come back in a year. I did not and found a 5th. Yeah, I had to argue my way into being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.
On the bright side, Thursday was my 5 years all clear date! - Tajkaj
10. A creep is a creep!
My ex husband had a friend who I just didn't like although I could never explain why. He was very handsome, always smiling, very respectful speech (always called me ma'am or Miss even though he's a few years older than us). My ex used to give me shit for expressing my feelings about this guy. I was never rude to him when he'd stop by, but I did have trouble hiding my creeped out vibe.
Fast forward to 3 years later. Guy is convicted of indecent liberties and statutory rape of his girlfriend's daughter (12 yo) and a 14 yo female. - ClutchinMyPearls
11. Pregnant ladies who didn't want to hike were the cell phones of the 20th century.
It didn't happen to me but was told by my mom. When she was pregnant with my older sister. Her and her family decided to go hiking in the mountains. On the day of the hike she suddenly felt discomfort and unconformable. So she stayed behind while the rest of her family went for the hike. Her family got lost and if it wasn't for my mom staying behind, they wouldn't have gotten help. Keep in mind that there was no cellphones back then, so if you got lost, it was a lot harder to contact rescue to come find you. - ToldNoOne
12. Parking garages are a gut instinct red zone.
I get really bad vibes from the car park in work - it's a giant, poorly lit multi-storey and I've seen enough horror films to know I shouldn't be taking it lightly. Whenever I get in, I pay attention to the floors people call the lift to to keep an eye on where they're going.
One time a guy got in in front of me and pressed 6, while I was parked on 8. He didn't get out at 6, and was still in the lift as I got to my floor. I leave, he doesn't... so I guess he's remembered he's on another floor, but just before I get to the dark area with all the cars, I turned back. This guy had waited about 30 seconds (therefore held the lift to wait) and silently emerged to follow me. I just stopped and stared him down. He had a deer-in-the-headlights look and turned straight back to the lift.
I have no idea if it saved my life but it freaked me the f*ck out! - Suspicious_Rabbit
13. Sometimes, it's good to stay stopped at a green light.
A few weeks ago.
I had just left my apartment complex and was heading to a friends. I pulled out of my driveway and up to the traffic light and stopped, I was in the left turn lane, light was red. It was late out and there wasn't many people on the road. I watched as the light went yellow, and then red for through traffic, one guy ran the tail end of the yellow, like usual.
My turn! Light goes green, I have an arrow blinking for me to turn left, I looked both ways and there was no one around, and I just didn't go.
I can not explain what happened other than something inside me just said DON'T GO, so I sat there staring at the green light. A couple seconds later a car came screaming through the red light, through the intersection, probably doing about 100km/hr, in the lane I would have been turning in to. They were going so fast their vehicle had a bounce to it. If I had turned my car would have been destroyed, and me along with it.
I sat there through the whole next light cycle and then turned, pulled over and called my sister. It was a ghostly feeling. I am a light jumper, I look both ways but I am impatient, and I can not explain what stopped me from going the second that light went green, but I'm glad it did. - BowlingForPennies
14. And sometimes missing the bus is a good thing...
Went to go catch the bus, saw the bus about to pull out from the stop, and i could have made it if i ran. Something told me not to catch it and just wait for the next one, so i did. Caught the next bus half an hour later. Now, i usually sit at the back of the bus on the drivers side, so that's where i sat. A little way into the journey, traffic was slowing, and we got to the cause of it. A lorry had crashed into the bus i had missed, right into the back on the drivers side. Had i caught that bus, i wouldn't be here. Still gives me chills after 6 years - Cosmo_Shaggy
15. Emptying the trash helped this person avoid getting hit in the head with glass.
Don’t know if gut feeling or lucky coincidence. Decided I should empty the bin on my way to uni which added maybe 10 seconds to my journey as the skip was 10ft from my front door. Began my walk to uni and roughly 10 seconds of walking in front of me some idiot from the third floor flat threw a load of glass out his window smashing all over the path - _helloalien
16. Gas leaks are unpredictable — but this kid had a feeling.
I was like eight or nine when my parents took me and my younger brother to stay the night at my paternal grandparents' house because they were in the middle of divorcing. They lived in a farmhouse that was connected to a barn (with machinery, gasoline tanks, and hay on the ground floor and furnished rooms on the floor above that) and the room we were supposed to stay in was in that barn. As soon as we went into the guest room, I was overwhelmed by panic and felt really dizzy. I turned around and just said that we will not sleep in that room and we spent the night on the couch in the living room instead. Later that night, a gas leak in the barn ignited and almost the entire barn including the guest rooms on its top floor exploded. Maybe I had that weird feeling because the gas had leaked into the room already but no one else felt anything and I'm sure I would be dead if I hadn't noticed it - CichaelMliford
17. Bet those Australians never came back to the US again...
Am a bouncer.
Came across a shady individual who had a gun on his person. Asked him to leave the weapon outside in his vehicle. Made a huge stink about it, but left it in his car.
For some reason, I still felt like it wasn't enough. So I watched him closely all night. He got trashed and then towards closing he decided to get in an argument with some Australian guys.
They were all talking about taking the fight outside. One Australian guy already had his shirt off. I asked them to at least take it outside, but I followed closely.
Once outside, the guy bent over to tie his shoe and I realized he had an ankle holster for a second weapon. As he was pulling the gun out I rushed him and we fought over the gun. The gun went off and hit a lady in her leg. Finally wrestled the gun out and put him in cuffs with the help of other security.
True, a lady got hit that night.. but I have a feeling if I hadn't been watching the guy closer somebody in the Australian group would have died. Weirdest part about the story is the lady who got hit in the leg didn't stick around for the police. She ran off after getting hit. Might have had a warrant or something, but it didn't seem like a life threatening shot.
Drunk people are weird. - kushglo
18. Always trust a creepy vibe.
Always hated the dad scout leader in my area growing up. Just seemed like a real creep. Hated seeing him at community events, soccer games, back to school nights, etc.
10 year old me staged a hissy fit to end all melt downs with me slamming doors, crying and breaking shit to avoid being moved from cub scouts (where the moms ran things) to avoid boy scouts.
Turns out the scout leader was molesting 3 or 4 of the boys in the troop and threatening to kill them if they ever spoke.
Justice found him and he’s in prison. - F_the_toots
19. Sometimes, people are being nice to cover something up...
There was a guy in college who was really Into me. And he seemed fine on the surface, very sweet, always helpful and wanting to do things for me, but my gut said this guy was bad news. Welp, later he went to prison for beating up his pregnant girlfriend, and this killing his child. - AlyBank
20. One of the rare instances where a cigarette actually saved someone...
I was at a pub party being held for my boyfriends father but I had a headache that wasn't going away. I had been drinking, but I wasn't drunk. I was just feeling like crap. So I made my excuses and left to walk home alone as I didn't want to ruin his night with his dad. It was a ten minute walk, if that, from the pub to our house and it wasn't properly dark yet. I walked down the street and passed a man sitting on a wall drinking a beer. A minute after I passed, I heard the bottle smash and then footsteps a little while back. Nothing unusual, it was a main road and there was another pub further along but something in my gut was screaming something was wrong, so I hurriedly walked to the pub and stopped outside to ask the smokers for a light and a chat as I smoked. I watched him pass by me, and then stare at me from across the street for an uncomfortable amount of time. With my gut screaming at me, I asked a bouncer working the doors if he could order me a taxi.
A few weeks later, while in the town centre, I saw a mugshot of the same dude wanted for rape. - McStaken
21. ... Movie trailers?!?!?!
Escaped the abduction of me and my friends thanks to my gut feeling.
I was at the mall with my friends, all of us around 12 years old. It was 8pm, and my mom was on her way to pick me up. We were all chilling together until each of our parents got here to get us. As we’re standing outside of a store near one of the side entrances, a man comes up to us. He’s about 30-ish, wearing huge glasses, and carrying a clipboard.
The man says, “Hey guys, do you want to watch some movie trailers and answer surveys about them? I’ll pay you each five dollars per trailer.”
Naturally, my friends are all for it. The thing is, my heart dropped as soon as I heard it. As they’re all saying yes, the man nods and then points to the side entrance. It’s pitch black outside, and that entrance leads to the back parking lot of the mall- which is always deserted. Then, he says: “We can do it over there.”
Then, a van appears:
My friends start to follow the man as he walks toward the glass doors, and I’m trailing behind them. Then, as we get close enough for me to kind of see what’s outside, I notice a van parked right outside the entrance. The headlights are on, the car is running. The back doors seems to be open. Every part of my being screams “NO! DON’T GO!” I stop in my tracks, and loudly say, “Guys, my mom is here to pick us all up, I don’t think we have time for it.”
The man freezes and keeps his eyes trained on the doors, and I can see his jaw clenching tightly. My friends look at me with confusion, and I try to give them the most terrified expression of warning that I can. Thankfully they get the message, and say bye to the guy.
The man refused to turn to look at us, and simply began to walk outside of the mall.
As we’re walking away, I turn and look behind me one last time.
The van, and the man, were gone. - Some_Explorer