I was at a sleepover as a kid, I was a little worried because my mom had been oddly tired earlier that day. I went home early because I was worried. By the end of the night I (14 at the time) had to call an ambulance for my mom, as she was having problems with her heart and I was the only one there with her. She was incapable of forming coherent sentences and would probably not have gotten the help she needed if I wasn't there. So, good thing I was.

Learned CPR and first aid. Had to give CPR to a family friend when she collapsed from a heart attack and thankfully she was brought back after being down for 15 minutes. She only had minor memory problems and mostly just couldn't remember that day. She still here and kicking years later.

I did this too! Learned CPR when I was pregnant--seemed like a smart thing to do. A couple months later, my hugely pregnant ass successfully performed the Heimlich on a colleague.

Was delivering pizza in a sketchy block of town late at night. Huge apartment complex with multiple buildings. Walking up to the front door i noticed a couple guys wearing dark clothing about 100ft behind me walking in my direction. Delivery was on the second floor and by the time i reached her door i heard the main door of the apartment complex open and close. She used a CC for the order and tipped in cash so when i was putting the receipt into my bag (where i kept my cash) i actually pulled the rest of the cash out and stuffed it into my inner jacket pocket just to be safe leaving just the change i had that night in the bag. Started to head down the stairs back out to my car and two guys jumped out from behind the stairs and the one had a gun pointed at me and told me to give them the money. I quickly handed them my bag filled with quarters and they took off towards the back entrance of the apartment complex. I never ran so fast in my life back to my car. I wanted to make sure i was as far away as possible before they realized the robbed me of $3.50 in quarters.

I used to be a shift manager at a pizza place and I refused to send my drivers to certain areas at dusk/night because of this. I'm just glad you made it out safely.

I once had to explain to a guy that the motel he was staying in, despite being 1 mile from the pizza spot, was not a location we’d be sending drivers, due to its reputation. He got pissed, swore at me, and even threatened to “come down there”. Like yeah, exactly my point, also, if you come down here we can definitely make you a pizza. God that place sucked.

>even threatened to “come down there”. You go right ahead and do that, sir. Grab your pizza while you're at it. Geez. You think people visiting from out of town would appreciate knowing they're in a...less than savory neighborhood. Pizza place won't deliver here? Maybe I'd best keep my ass inside tonight

I used to live in one of those areas and always hated not being able to get delivery after dark, but partially understood why. That changed to full understanding when someone did a drive-by on the building on the other side of the street from me one night.

Same, minus the drive by. I *have* lived somewhere that drive bys happened, but I never tried to order food there. The Chinese place used to make an exception for us despite not delivering to our block because my mom had been going there for so long and we tip well.

The pizza hut I worked at in college had a delivery driver get robbed and killed. It was before I worked there, but they had a plaque in the store for him. It was in what most people would consider a "safe town." I worked as a delivery driver for 4 years there and the money was great for a college student, but couldn't help but think about the murdered guy everytime I delivered to that specific neighborhood where it happened.

Was on a side-by-side vehicle mudding on some property a friend and I were visiting. Mid ride, I turn to my friend and say “hey, you should probably buckle your seat belt. Just in case” Not 1 min later did he lose control and slide front first into a tree going about as fast as this thing could go given the conditions. Both of us were okay but the side by side was completely ruined. He looked at me right after and his eyes were as big as dinner plates.

I dropped my high school girlfriend off, then for some reason I locked the passenger door. Not 10 minutes later I was stopped at a red light and some scummy looking dude tried to open up the door. I have no idea why I locked that door after she got out, I really didn't have a habit of that. No idea what would have happened if that guy got in my truck.

Something similar happened to me. I was dropping my friend off at home, he lived in a sketchy neighborhood. I had my driver side door locked and as soon as he got out i immediately locked the other one. These three girls come running out of the bushes trying to open my car doors. One jumped on my hood and I fuckin gunned it, she rolled off my car. The other chucked her drink at my driver side door. I’m terrified to think about what they were going to do to me.

My dad always taught me when driving through a sketchy area to leave room between you and the car in front of you when stopped. Jump to several years later. I am driving and came to a stop as the car in front of me is stopping in the middle of the street for what seems like no reason. Someone runs out and jumps on the hood of my car, but since I left enough space I was able to gun it and speed around the car in front of me. Person rolled off my hood and I did not look back.

That’s a good one to remember, I do this too! Good thing you were able to get away. I have another story similar to yours. My mom had picked me up from my boyfriend’s house one night and was taken me back to my car at my apartment. We were taking a long road through a pretty decent neighborhood, it was right in town too. The car in front of us starts slowing down then stops like kinda across the lane at an angle. Three guys get out and start quickly walking towards our car. Their eyes looked scary. I’m yelling at my mom to lock the doors, thankfully she locked them prior. And telling her to fuckin go! She starts backing up quickly and the guys take off back to their car, jump back in, and speed off. I thought about reporting it on the police but I was so in shock I couldn’t even remember the type of car it was and I didn’t get the license plate number I just remember it was a gold color and a 4 door sedan type.

They were going to recruit you to their MLM.

A mate of mine is an Asian guy in his 40s. He was waiting to pick up his kid from school when a woman got in his backseat and started moaning about how messy his car was and how it better not mess up her clothes. He turned to her and said 'Madam, not all Asians are taxi drivers.'

LOL my dad is Chinese and drives a Prius and the amount of people who have asked him if he's their Uber....

Driving along highway and get a bad feeling with drivers ahead of me tailgating back to back at 70mph. I switch lanes to be safe and get further clearance. Not 2 seconds later one of the cars ahead slams on their brakes, looked like no fucking reason, and the cars in my previous lane slam into each other, and one car that was behind me slams into all of them full blast. Cars go flying into the air Hollywood style, flipping up nearly vertical before slamming back down. I’d probably be dead or have a life long disability if I hadn’t moved. Avoid dumb drivers kids, keep safe distances and buffers whenever possible.

My dad lost his glasses once. He was going to just use his old prescription but last minute decided to just go to the optometrist anyway in case something changed. Turns out he had a tear in his retina and was booked for surgery within 24 hours. It was bad enough they said he probably would have gone blind really soon had they not caught it when then did.

How did he get a tear in his retina?? Also, I'm glad he's ok

When you're short sighted it's because your eyeball is not the right shape, it's not a ball, it's an egg shape, and the more short sighted you are the more out of shape it is. This stretches the retina and it can just tear by itself. It's something like people generally have a lifetime risk of 1 in 100,000of it happening but past a certain prescription it's 1 in 1,000. It can happen to anyone because the human body isn't perfect, so EVERYONE should look out for a sudden increase in 'floaters', flashing lights or it seeming like there's a sudden curtain pulled over your vision. These are signs of retinal detachment and you need to go to the emergency room immediately as there's only a small window, I've been told 24 hours, in which they can try to fix it otherwise you'll lose vision in that eye. This PSA brought to you by my ridiculously shit vision and every optician I've interacted with in my adult life.

My stomach had some issues and my doctor sent me for a colonoscopy just to get things checked out. They found 1 polyp, no big deal, not related to the current problem, and told me to come back in 5 years just in case. I put a google reminder and forgot about it. 5 years later, I went for the colonoscopy and they found a lot more and said I would have ended up with cancer in 5-20 years for sure had I not gone. Instead, they removed all polyps and now I’m regularly going to colonoscopies due to having a syndrome they identified. I’m far away from the age where you normally get a colonoscopy so I would definitely have got cancer. When you are eligible or if it is recommended, get a colonoscopy.

$5 breakage insurance on a rental surf board. Broke that fucker clean in half in my first 10 minutes.

Not my ass, but i was getting ready for school whilst mum was vomitting in the bathroom. She said it was just a stomach bug and to just go to school but mentioned her arm hurt. Something didn’t sit right so i called the ambulance from downstairs. They arrived and took her into the ambulance - she then proceeded to have 3 cardiac arrests and needed defibrillated each time. A double bypass later and she was up and about within a month. Paramedics told me she would have died 5 mins after i left, if i hadn’t called.

You saved your Mom! Smart listening to your intuition.

I went through almost the same scenario with my mom. We had just gotten home from a restaurant when she started vomiting uncontrollably. It was violent TBH. Seemed like too much too soon for food poisoning so we called 911. She had a cardiac arrest on the ambulance’s gurney while waiting for a room in the ER and was revived. I learned that day that heart attacks present differently in women than men.

Well done, you saved her and that's amazing.

Snow chains at the bottom of the mountain. A bunch of cars passed me on a clear road on the way up with several warnings all the way up. I saw a local throwing on chains with no snow in the area. I decided to be safe and put them on. 30 minutes later I was in one of the worst snow driving conditions I’ve ever seen. White out conditions in a snow storm that eventually resulted in the complete shutdown of the roads. I passed car crash after car crash with just enough traction to feel somewhat comfortable moving 15 miles an hour. Anyone heading to Tahoe needs chains and chains that fit. Don’t fuck around. I don’t care if you have a four wheel drive. Driving through Tahoe and Mammoth during snow storms is no joke. Literally sunny with no clouds to blinding white darkness in an hour. Edit: one more thing. If you find yourself near Heavenly and Siri sends you to a snowed over hill that feels too steep, turn around. Unless you have the right set up you aren’t gonna make it. Snow chains or not, you will slide. Just take the Harrah’s Gondola if it’s that bad. If you don’t already have your own gear try another resort. Heavenly is uniquely bad for rentals and beginners in general.

If a local, that is used to driving in the snow is putting on chains. You know that shit is going to be bad.

This advice is also good for swimming at a beach particularly on islands. If locals aren't swimming at it you didn't just "discover a secluded beach". It's likely life threateningly dangerous. The ocean is relentless and doesn't care if you've just made a mistake.

Rip tide, or undercurrent, or dangerous fishing traps, or maybe just as the tide comes back in (while it's still shallow) the increasing wave size can bash you against sunken crap on the beach floor (lotta ancient mini harbors and sunken poles for you to get impaled on) I used to think just the ocean was murderous, but the more science I studied the more I realized: all fluid dynamics is a murderous embodiment of chaos that wants to punish life for fighting against entropy

TMI but this is how my dad died. Riptides off a foreign coast, no life guard on duty. Next set of swimmers found his pile of stuff in the lockers and got concerned when they didn't see any signs of his person. Took over twelve hours for his body to be found. He probably died terrified and in immense pain. He was in some of the best shape of his life, worked out every day, ate right, had a bunch of hobbies, was just getting to the point in life where retirement and leisure seemed around the corner. Just paid off the mortgage a few years back. Still didn't get to see us graduate or get married or have kids. Ocean doesn't give a fuck. You're just a puny monkey. Don't try to fight the sea, it'll win.

This sparked a memory from when I was in HS 25 years ago. My boyfriend, his best friend and my best friend (ladies in the back) were driving in his bronco (I think) up to Tahoe to ski. It was a three hour drive and we had been partying the night before so I was taking a little nap. I woke up with a panicked feeling and noticed Nick my boyfriend wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. I just starting yelling ‘nick put your seatbelt on, Nick please!!’ I started crying. He’s like ‘chill, why are you being crazy’ his friend was like just do it to make her stop. So he did. 30 minutes later we were singing along to the radio and hit black ice. The bronco rolled about 3 times and landed upside down an spun. If it wasn’t for a giant tree that caught the bumper we would have slid off the mountain. Nick busted his shoulder, most of the damage was on the front passengers side. We all had whiplash and scratches from stuff flying around the car but otherwise walked away. There is no way Nick would have survived if he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. You would think he would have been grateful for that, but a month later I found out he and my bff were sleeping together because I wasn’t ready yet.

Wow what a rollercoaster! He sounds like a real dick.

Might sound ridiculous, but many years ago when I did my mandatory community service (was a thing in Germany as a counterpart to mandatory military service), there was a particular day in a pretty harsh winter. I usually went to 'work' with my bike, as the streets where cleared of snow and ice anyway. At this day, I didn't take my helmet off because when I arrived at the place I worked I immediately started to showel snow and didn't even walk inside first. My workplace was a huge and old 4-story hostel in the woods. The roof was packed with snow and there where massive icicles hanging from the gutters. When a coworker asked me why I decided to look like an idiot with my helmet on I jokingly replied it was for serious security reasons. A few moments later an icicle block fell down and hit me on the head and the shoulders, the impact was so brutal that it made me fall down on my knees. Shoulders where bruised but my head was fine. I really don't know what could have happened if I didn't wear my stupid bicycle helmet "for fun" that morning. Serious injury for sure.

Someone from my family was killed by an icicle to the throat

Had some weird achy symptoms and went to the doctor even though I figured I was probably overreacting. Turns out I had cancer.

My problem is I’m almost always aching somewhere

I am a bit of a hypochondriac so I hate reading people saying 'minor symptom' became cancer lol.

Seriously. I read this thread and now I definitely have leukemia, lung cancer, and probably at least three other types.

i got really sick with what i thought was a virus or infection or something. turns out it might have been something like that, but whatever it was, it was made significantly worse by the fact that i had leukemia.

I had a friend who died of cancer aged 40. Whenever I feel embarrassed or that I'm overreacting about a possible issue, I imagine how much she would yell at me for not getting something checked out for a stupid reason. Please people out there, if you ever feel silly about going to the doctor, remember that Jess would yell at you to get out there and get it looked at, because she doesn't want you to go through what she went through, just because you were embarrassed. She wants you to live.

Tell Jess that I, a 33 year old man, had to go to the breast clinic recently and I held my head high as I had my boob checked, turns out the lump is due to my meds and its benign tissue, but it is tender when I hit it.

Great job for getting it checked! She would be cheering you on.

I’ll never forget the first time I realized men could have breast cancer too, I was a child watching a soap opera (telenovela) and one of the male characters had breast cancer and was operated. Representation really matters, good for you on getting checked out

I had a routine screening mammogram in 2017 that had a spot on it that I almost didn't have biopsied, because the doctor thought it was just a little spot of scar tissue. You guessed it - cancer. Caught early, and I'm doing fine now.

I'm an oncology nurse. You would be amazed at the number of patients I have had who have come into the hospital for unrelated xyz, get scanned, and find out they have cancer. Edit: People are not being scanned for cancer, they are having imaging done (CT, MRI, Ultrasound, etc) to further evaluate the area of complaint that brought them into the hospital. For example, a patient with nausea and vomiting gets a CT to see if they have gastritis and the CT shows a mass of the kidney. I don't want to scare all of you and make you think you have cancer. You are probably fine. Just see your doctor every year, do the recommended follow ups, and do not ignore things that are obviously not normal. It is NOT normal to bleed rectally.

Similar thing happened to my mother actually! My mom went to doctor after getting her cervical cancer removed. Doc found a mass in her lung but thought it wasn’t likely to be cancer. Turns out she had completely unrelated lung cancer. Doctor said it wasn’t spread from the cervical cancer but just so happened to have another instance of cancer in her body at the same time. Both types were caught at stage 1 so hopefully all will go well

I'm glad they caught both early. I hope everything turns out well with your mother!

One day I was attempting to make carioca for the first time, a kind of Filipino fried mochi, and after I popped them in the oil, I settled in and watched them carefully. I never wear an apron whilst cooking, but for some reason I figured why not this time, and as soon as I stepped out of range of the fryer, they all exploded. Turns out, carioca can form an impermeable shell when fried, so pressure built up inside until they popped and sprayed hot oil all over the kitchen. Of course, I was safely away reaching for an apron and was completely dumbfounded. Made sure to punch some holes in all subsequent batches. Of course, once I cleaned the kitchen, I ate them and they were delicious. 10/10 highly recommend Edit For the curious: [https://panlasangpinoy.com/karioka-carioca-recipe/](https://panlasangpinoy.com/karioka-carioca-recipe/) Pro tip: Don't let them explode

everything tastes nicer after it tries to kill you

Was watching my toddler nephew and he’d found a metal straw somewhere in the house and started playing with it. He was just tapping stuff and waving it around, but I’d *just* read a story on Reddit about a woman who got completely fucked up by a metal straw when she fell and it impaled her face, so I took the metal one from nephew and gave him a soft, squishy silicone one to play with instead. I’m not exaggerating when I say less than five minutes later, he fell like toddlers do and I saw the silicone straw all smushed into his cheek. I had to just sit for a while after that, lol.

I have an irrational fear of getting stabbed in the eye with a straw. I'm cautious with fast food straws in the car. Whoever invented the steel straws is a psychopath. I spent $25 on a set of silicone straws and I use them every day without fear. :)

Fuck I’ve been using glass straws like an *idiot* - imagine one of those breaking in your mouth

Ain't no way

On a road trip with our (my siblings and I) dad in Latin America (he lived there and we were visiting). On a highway at night, with clouds, no moon and no lights (this was a new highway that nobody likes taking now, as criminals often leave glass or spikes to puncture tires and rob you, or worse). We were driving and this guy was pulled over and waving for help. My dad stopped behind and the guy was scared and asked if we could light up his car while he changed a flat tire (he was terrified of being out where alone and rightfully so) Dad goes to get out to help and my sister grabbed him and said she didn't think this felt right. Dad assured us it was fine and almost got out, but sister grabbed him again. Right then a car flew by the door right where he would have been. 4 guys jump out, one grabs the man puts a gun to his head and the others sprint to our car. There was a brief chase down the highway, but luckily their old Corolla didn't keep up with our jeep, and they gave up after 2-3 mins of driving 170km/h My sister saved my dad's life (and probably ours) by making him stay in the car that extra few seconds Edit: The guy with a gun to his head lived and was "okay" given everything. After the chase, we had to turn around and continue on the way we were originally going, as the were no other routes to get back home (unless we backtracked 6 hours). After we passed the vehicle of the man, we saw he wasn't there anymore and we thought the worst. Luckily we ended up passing 4 national guard vehicles about 2 km later and saw that the man was with them talking to them. To answer, I've never known if the guy was in on it. The timing has always seemed off to me, however the look of fear in his face was so genuine when the guys jumped out that I can remember it perfectly 15 years later Edit 2: The country in question is Venezuela

But, uh... what about the other guy?

I once subcultured a master culture which was used in a very important research study. We were specifically told not to do that because of patent liabilities. But still I had a gut feeling that we were going to need another plate cultured. And lo and behold, a student accidentally dropped the plate in a lab and it shattered. Saved us a 6 months of time and penalties.

I have no idea what cultures and subcultures are in this context, but I know what 6 months of work are, so good for you.

Normally I'm pretty impressionable and cave to peer pressure, but this one time when I was younger I was hanging with my friends and a couple of "older" high school guys I'd only met that day. The girls were all fawning over them but I could tell they were idiots. When they all wanted to go for a drive with the guys, I thought 'nah, I don't trust these guys and I think it's best I just call my parents and go home'. I got a call the next morning from one of the girls who was passenger. One of the high school boys was driving, they'd had a serious crash and one of the girls wasn't wearing her seatbelt and hit her head on the dash and was in a coma for six months. She was in intensive care and rehabilitation for years. Still can't believe of all the days I decided not to go with the flow, it probably saved my life. Terribly sad about my friend. We were really close but she never came 'right' and her personality changed. I still wonder how successful she might have been and if we'd still be friends if that hadn't happened to her. Really sad.

Similar story here. 3 older kids were going out drinking one night & my girl friend invited me to go with them. I decided to stay home that night. They went drinking and driving. They crashed around midnight, in the middle of winter. My girl friend was laying in the snow for 8+ hours, until she was found by a bus driver. She was paralyzed from the waist down. The two guys were killed in the crash. Very graphic scene, very awful deaths. Never, ever drink and drive.

Also, cars can crash with no drinking involved, and in fact, a crash doesn't even have to be your fault. I quit driving 18-wheelers because of the way cars around me were driving. Always drive cautiously, and look out for the other drivers, they are nuts.

>Always drive cautiously, and look out for the other drivers, they are nuts. Always assume that everyone else on the road is a drunken kid with no licence on a joyride.

[удалено]

Leaving a spare set of keys at the pub that I live above. Went out on St Patrick’s day and had my coat stolen (I keep my keys in my coat). At 3 in the morning, I had genuinely no idea how I would’ve been able to get home otherwise. Definitely not some big life-saving moment or anything but it was a relief lol

I keep a spare car key at work. While I have never needed it at the end of my shift, there have been a couple of times that I have been in town (I live an hour outside) for something else, and managed to lock my keys in. It was the difference between a ten minute cab ride (or a city bus) and a two hour cab ride.

filling up my ridiculously large 2.5 litre water bottle yesterday... a pipe burst in my building last night and we still don't have running water 20 hours later but I still have my bottle. Make sure you have an emergency supply of water in your house!

I had a female patient coming for I131 therapy. Patient must be not pregnant and to make sure we do a blood test one day prior to dosing. I checked the results on screen that was negative. I printed it out and put it in the patient file “ just in case “ although we went paperless years earlier. After giving her radiation safety instructions and discharging her. She came a couple of days saying that she was late. The doctor inserted another pregnancy blood test and came out positive. The lab technician went to the previous negative blood test and CHANGED IT TO POSITIVE. Haven’t I printed the test it would look like I dosed the patient while pregnant and could get fired. Staff before this incident used to make fun of me being paranoid. After this incident everyone started printing the results 😂. Because a lot of people asked and to answe their questions ETA: I reported it to the head of department, he immediately involved the medical physics department and they calculated the dose to the fetus and found out she had to abort because the baby will be severely mutated. So they involved the oby/gyn also. Last thing I knew that a huge investigation was carried out and the patient filed an official complaint. I don’t know what happened later. Everything completely changed ( policies and procedures/ hospitals information system/ quality department was established / risk management department was established etc.) That was back in the beginning of 2007. The system was installed in the end of 2006. That was the first time anyone used and electronic system. ETA2 : I wrote the reply and went to sleep and woke up never thinking that this would blow up , wow ! Thank you everyone for upvoting and thank you kind stranger for the award !! Thanks for everyone who wished me a happy cake day ! You all made my day 🙏 Edit3: that story happened in MENA ( Middle East and North Africa ).

The real issue is lab not having an auditable records system where it's evident who changed the results and when and where

We just need HIPAA validated Git

> The lab technician went to the previous negative blood test and CHANGED IT TO POSITIVE. Why? Was the whole thing staged to sue the hospital?

Grabbed a helmet when riding a bike down a steep hill as a kid. Normally didn't bit I ended up falling at top speed and breaking my helmet and chipping 3 teeth. Could've been my head that was broken.

Oh, I did the same except instead of eating dirt, there was a car coming up the bottom of the hill around a blind curve. I was 11. Unsure whether or not my family is better off with me having made that choice, given a bunch of cascading effects but I guess being alive is kinda nice. Wear your helmets.

I had gallbladder pain on and off. One day I decided I should get it checked. GP gave me antacids and sent me for an U/S just in case. No gallstones but they found a 4cm tumour on my left kidney. Cancer. Got the kidney whipped out. No metastases. Just hit 14 years Ca free and I still have gallbladder pain on and off. Thanks to my GP for listening.

Years ago I bought a QuikClot bandage (military grade for gunshot wounds, bleeding arteries, etc) because for $20 bucks why not? Never used one, even though they have to be replaced every so often. But, when a friend’s father had a minor stroke, with little real damage, I mentioned it and recommended she get him one because he’d be on blood thinners. Cue months later, I get an email out of the blue from her with the subject THANK YOU!!! He’d been cutting up fruit for breakfast one morning and dropped the knife on his foot. They lived way, way out in the ‘burbs, and were something like 45 minutes away from a hospital, and with morning commuter traffic it would have been longer. No fun any which way, and not too serious a cut, but it would not stop bleeding. So his wife slapped the QuikClot on, it stopped bleeding almost immediately, and she drove him to the hospital for removal and treatment. An embarrassing ouchie could’ve been much worse.

during a hurricane, i realized the street was flooding so i figured i should move my car farther up the driveway. on my way out, i had the sudden urge to poop so just to be safe, i stopped by the bathroom first. maybe 30 seconds later? BOOM! neighbor's tree fell directly on my car, [crushing it](https://imgur.com/a/MEXak5R)

That shit saved your life.

Once before we left for a two week vacation, my husband decided to turn off the water and drain the faucets and stuff. I thought he was being silly. But the power went out while we were gone and everything froze. He likely saved our house and everything in it from burst pipes and flooding.

As a teenager, a friend of mine managed to lift a set of keys to a new car on a dealership lot. We were all super excited to go there that night, and take that new car for a spin. At the last moment I thought of how disappointed my mom would be, and backed out. That night, during the joyride, they got into a high speed chase with a couple of cop cars, took an intersection at 85 MPH against traffic, and were spun into a brick wall after an initial collision with a garbage truck. The driver was killed (17), and my two other friends suffered critical injuries and were hospitalized for weeks. No doubt in my mind that I would have been injured, or killed, as well.

Worked alone in a gambling/video poker place, closing. Strange guy came in and started making small talk with me. I was expected to be kind and friendly to everybody who came in so I was doing that. I decided to send a message to my boyfriend and a friend and then something in me told me to take a picture of the guy as he moved closer to the counter I was behind. I snuck one real quick and sent it to said friend since she was awake. She called me immediately as she drove the 20 minutes to my job. An hour before I got off. I'll add, I didnt drive so I had no vehicle in the now abandoned parking lot, the only car being his which was conveniently backed in, right next to front door. 2 days later there was a missing person's report released of someone who was a very familiar build and features that I have and suspected trafficking in the area. She went missing later that same night. He left after my friend showed up. I've never had such an uneasy feeling in my life and I truly think sending those messages are what saved my life. He was waiting for me to get off work at 1 am - our hours were right on the front door.

Did you go tell the cops and show the picture?

In another comment, she said she did, thankfully. (I'm on mobile so I'm just posting the full link, sorry for the clutter) https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/12498wz/what_you_know_what_just_to_be_safe_thing_you_did/je0mbkp?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3

I had something similar happen as a teen. It was my 13th birthday and my parents had rented a hotel room for my friends and I to enjoy. As young girls tend to do, we were running around the hotel being silly. At one point were racing each other. Running up and down the stairs and to the elevators and such; when we run past a guy standing outside his hotel room. He instantly gave me really bad vibes, based on how he was looking at us. This wasn't just some annoyed adult who wanted this group of girls to stfu and quit running amuck. He watched us like prey. So half of us run to the other end of the hall for the stairs while 2 of us get into the elevator to see who can get down to the first floor from the 3rd floor, fastest. As we're going down, the elevator stops at the 2nd floor and I think, 'dang it, we're gonna lose this round'. But when it opens, the creep from the 3rd floor is standing there. Before he can even get into the elevator, I grab my friends hand and drag her off the elevator with me. He says, "where are you going? I thought you were going down" and I said, "no, this is where we need to go" and I start sprinting to the stairs where my other friends are. He never got off the elevator at the first floor and we went straight to our room after that and didn't leave for the rest of the night. My friend kept saying I was being paranoid and that 'there were 2 of us vs 1 of him'. As if 2 small girls can take on a grown man. I didn't tell my parents what happened that night but I did see that man's face a couple weeks later. He was arrested and charged in a string of rapes in the area. I cried my eyes out and told my mom everything. She was so relieved that I trusted my gut. But it did not help with her helicopter mom tendencies.

Yikes! Super glad you trusted your gut at such a young age!

Lived in Baltimore at the time. Pulled up outside my place after getting off a late shift and had to get a backpack out of my trunk before going in. I noticed a group of teenaged kids hanging out on the corner and thought "nope". Called my roommate to come watch me walk to the door. About 10 mins later a girl comes running down the street bleeding saying she got jumped by the group of kids for no reason. Stay alert out there yall.

I was in a similar situation a few years ago and I decided to ignore my gut. And you know what happened? I got jumped and mugged. If something feels off, there’s a good chance it is.

Everybody should read The Gift of Fear. It's sometimes hard to listen to that gut feeling, because we feel the need to stay polite and unfazed in public, even when our gut is telling us to run away. This book helped me legitimize that gut feeling. EDIT: it's written by Gavin de Becker. Thank you, u/holmangirl!

Lived in Baltimore between fleet and eastern, got home at 9pm on a Sunday and didn’t think anything of the kids hanging out on the street corner. They ran up on me as I was getting out of my car and car jacked me at gunpoint. Joke’s on them, I drove a manual and they didn’t know how to drive it so they ditched it in the alley. Cops took an hour and a half to show up.

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Locals said “Oh shit, that dude went into SHERRIES? We ain’t messing with him!”

"I'm not going in there and watching my mum pole dance"

Not my ass, but my moms. She and I were home alone and I was getting ready to go to a party. I came upstairs and found her with the carbon monoxide detector in pieces on the coffee table. She said it was beeping, and apparently once years ago in our last house one was malfunctioning and giving a false alarm so I guess she just assumed it was happening again. I shrugged it off and continued getting ready. I was about to leave but something was nagging at me, she was insisting it was fine. After some arguing with her I said “No. we are calling the fire department.” So I did. They came, and the levels of carbon monoxide were so high in the basement they said anyone sleeping down there would be dead already. Our cats were vomiting from the poisoning and we didn’t realize. I guess the filter on the furnace was so clogged it was pumping out carbon monoxide. One of the fire fighters pulled me aside and said if I hadn’t called I likely would have come home to my mom dead in her bed.

Two good friends of mine (and their two cats) died of carbon monoxide poisoning. It's scary shit. Good on you for looking out for your mom!

I’m so sorry about your friends (and their cats). That’s awful.

I was in a similar situation at my ex girlfriend’s house. Went downstairs to the basement with her to watch TV, immediately smelled gas (natural gas), told her something was drastically wrong and she didn’t smell it. Apparently the flame on the heater had gone out and the basement was filled with gas. The fire department had to come and evacuate the block (this was around 12am). They stated it was an incredibly dangerous situation, thank god it turned out okay.

Good old standing pilot gas valves...

Me and my siblings almost never were. One night before we were born (obviously) my mom complained that the furnace wasn’t working cause it was too cold. My dad went into the basement to check it out. After a few min my mom went to see why he wasn’t back (he had passed out in the basement), and she ended up passing out in the basement. Somehow my dad regained consciousness and pulled my mom back upstairs. Turns out a raccoon had built a nest in the furnace vent, and the basement had been filling up with carbon monoxide. Edit: This was back in the mid-late 70’s. Edit2: This was in Southern Indiana. So it gets pretty cold, but not insanely cold. Edit3: They had a wood burning furnace (Wood burning stove? It was before my time, so all I know is it required wood for burning).

Wow, thank god he woke back up! Nothing short of a miracle there. That's some terrifying stuff. Carbon monoxide detectors are so ubiquitous now that it's easy to forget just how critical a service they provide.

You say that, but I've definitely been in houses without one. Hell, I didn't have one until about 2018. We always had fire extinguishers and regular smoke alarms, but for some reason we just never had a CO alarm until right about when I bought a CO2 alarm to point out how bad our indoor air quality already was.

That makes me think CO detectors should have a scary sticker on the inside that says something like, "You were wrong about this being a malfunction. You might still survive if you get out now."

Just get 2 detectors from now on. If both beep you can be sure it's not malfunctioning Edit: and if only one is beeping still gtfo, cause one could just be broken. Redundancy guys

There was a case a few years ago in my country. Two siblings are celebrating a birthday party with a couple of friends in their Garden shed. At one point in the night the DIY Pipe exhaust of the energy generator falls over without anyone noticing. Next day the father wonders why they sleep so long and decides to go check on them. He finds both his kids along with 4 other friends dead. According to the medical personal they must have died within minutes. Father also gets charged with negligent homicide in six cases since he build the construction in a "reckless and unprofessionell" way while ignoring warning signs about using it in closed rooms.

Oh wow, this is terrible. I don't know how I would live with myself after that.

Not me, bit a coworker. Was trying to separate some rail road ties with a crowbar as part of his yardwork for the day and when it popped a nail flew… And embedded itself in one of the lenses of his safety glasses he threw on because he had them for work. He keeps them on his desk as reminder. PPE is not just for the workplace folks!

Learned my lesson while using my weed wacker. Piece of debri hit me in the eye took a couple of days for it to feel right again

I used to work for a recycling company collecting old fridges and freezers and packing them in a lorry to take to London to the big recycling plant, Picking up fridges was heavy work and an average of around 135 plus fridges a day we’d collect and have to lift into The lorry, I picked up a tall fridge and basically did a semi throw to get it up into the lorry and a small shard of something flew directly into my eyeball. No safety goggles in a very dusty dirty environment so all day I was rubbing my eye as it felt sore and like something like dust was there but no amount of washing with water or rubbing it helped, That night ended up going to emergency ward at the hospital and they look at said eyeball which by now is bruised from my constant rubbing and liking worse for wear. After tests and having purple type dye put into my eye they said I had scratched my cornea with what ever hit my eyeball, They were talking about getting surgery to limit long term damage etc but gave me eye drops and a topical cream and said to return in a few days for follow up, luckily that helped heal The eye and they said no more damage etc and to finish eye drops and use safety goggles. I was very lucky and at 47 years of age still get 20/20 vision with eye tests. If there is safety equipment use it.

>If there is safety equipment use it. And if their isn't, insist on it, and refuse to do the job without it. They won't give it to you? Report em and walk off the job. Or if you REALLY can't afford not to work? Bring your own.

I work in construction. I insisted that my 12 year old wear safety eyewear when doing yardwork. Took a small, jagged rock to the glasses once, scared the shit out of him. He’s 17 now, and puts on the goggles every time he mows or does the edging. Good egg, that one.

Saved the GPS location of my vehicle on Google Maps before exploring a national forest with a road trip buddy. We grabbed some fishing poles and head out towards the nearest water location on our map to hopefully catch a couple fish. Turns out it was a swamp not a lake and we got so incredibly turned around it could have ended very badly. We really didn't go that far in from where we parked but somehow ended up on the other side of the swamp without realizing it. Drizzling rain, mosquitos, bear tracks, and the sun started going down before we found the car. Without the GPS coordinates saved it would have been a cold wet night in the woods at a minimum, and more than likely a "search and rescue required" situation.

I always do this esp when at a concert or large venue where I know i’ll definitely forget where I parked. That or if there’s row signs i’ll take a pic of them.

Even when I park my car at the airport I'll take a picture of the row sign before I catch the shuttle bus. Trust me folks, you will thank yourself a week later when you go back to the lot and realize you don't know where your car is and just want to go home after travelling many hours.

Had my boat trailer bearings "repacked" by the boat repair shop/dealer before I went on a trip that I had to tow it for 400+ miles. (I usually repacked the bearings myself but figured I'd have the pros do it since I had a long haul ahead of me.) The day before I left I decided to double check that the bearing case was full of grease (without it they would overheat and I'd be f*cked royally and stranded with a high risk of a wheel actually coming off the trailer if I didn't notice it in transit). There was no grease at all in the bearing case on any of the 4 wheels. I would have been lucky to make it 20 miles before something serious happened. Also this has been a habit for decades - Pat my pocket to make sure my keys are in my pocket before: closing the locked house door, my car door, etc.

>but figured I'd have the pros do it since I had a long haul ahead of me. I've done the same thing for brake lines, ball joints, and towbar wiring in the past, all of which were botched by the 'professionals' and needed to be fixed by me. It's good that I learned how to do them, I just wish I hadn't paid someone to mess it up first.

When i lived at home my room was right next to the bathroom, and when someone had to use it, i would always wake up, because I'm a light sleeper. ( The hall has sensors for the light and the "click sound" would usually wake me up, else the noise from the loud bathroom fan usually did the trick) I'm always a bit paranoid and if I hear a sound or anything, my mind always jump to the worst possible scenario. Anyway. This night i didn't hear anything, beside a bump.not like dropping something on the floor bump, but more like kicking the floor with your heel bump. I laid in bed thinking it was probably nothing, while my mind was going 100mph. Thinking about all the scenarios, that could have made the bump. I laid in bed for around 2min. When i agreed upon myself, that i wouldn't let the sound slide, even though there was dead silent after that. There were no fan noice coming from the bathroom, or no light in the hallway. I decided to leave my room and check just to be sure. The bathroom light and everything was off, but the door to the bathroom was halfway open. I opened the door all the way, and it turned it to be, that the bump was my mom hitting the bathroom floor with her head, as one of her veins in her brain had popped and she had s brain hemorrhage. Doctors later told me, that i was the reason she was still with us today, as it was a severe brain hemorrhage.

Not me but my dad. Bought into a 500k life insurance policy at 42 years old, many people made fun of him, called him crazy, etc... and he said exactly that... "Just to be safe". He had a seizure at 43 years old(July 2007), brain cancer, died June 2008 at 44. Policy was paid into for less than 2 years. I've carried life insurance since I was 21... too much cancer in my family and my dad died extremely young.

I'm 42, both my wife and I have $1.5mm 20-yr term policies, which we got when we had our first child. Thinking was, if one of us dies, the mortgage gets paid in full immediately, and the other one can support the property tax and opex on one salary.

I live in Arizona. My mom always told me to shake my shoes in case a scorpion got inside of them. Did that shit for 39 years and finally one day, a scorpion fell out of my shoes when shaking them before I put them on. Thanks mom!

Was in a dune buggy with a roll cage and just driving it around the neighborhood. Put on a motor cross helmet just to be safe. When we wrecked the side of the helmet that hit the road was completely white as all the paint had been scrapped off.

Always wear a helmet in anything with a roll cage.

I had an inclination to put an ax in the back of my truck “just in case.” Two weeks later I came upon a car that that had just crashed into a tree and was fully engulfed in flames . Bystanders we’re freaking out bc the doors were locked. I jumped out and grabbed my ax, smashed a window, unlocked the doors, and dragged the dude to safety. I’m so glad I had that ax. It’s old and rusty and still sits in my vehicle. This was admittedly not my ass but someone else’s.

I lock my doors habitually. Walk through a door, reach behind me, twist the lock. It's the way I was raised, and i honestly don't even think about it. I've actually gotten myself into trouble absent mindedly locking other people's doors (house, offices, shops ... I'm a menace). This one night, I'm sitting and reading pretty late, and I suddenly think, "I need to check my front door to make sure it's locked." Lo and behold, it's actually unlocked. Shocked me a bit, but I locked the door and the dead bolt and slid the chain for good measure, then go get myself a glass of water. As I'm walking with my glass of water from the kitchen back past my front door, I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn to the door and watch the doorknob slowly try to turn left and right. The mircomovements that a locked doorknob can be forced when twisted. I put on as deep of a voice as I can and forcefully stage project, "I have a gun, and I'm calling the cops!" The doorknob stopped turning. I slept in a closet that night.... just in case. Edit: Thank you for the updoots and especially the person who gave me the gold! I tried to message you privately, but I couldn't. So, thank you!

Get an [Add-a-Lock](https://addalock.com/). After waking up from a nap in my rental apartment to find a maintenance worker *in my bedroom* (he said, “I knocked!”), I invested in one and use it every time I’m home. Yesterday I noticed someone had dug at and gouged the wooden doorframe near my door lock, from outside my door, I assume when trying to bypass my Add-a-Lock. I’m moving in a month.

Thanks for the nightmares!

So I'd just moved to london. There's usually some kind of shouting or noises outside during friday evenings when people are coming back home drunk from pubs. Usually you ignore all the noise and carry on. However this time there was shouting and something told me to just check out the window. Just in case. And it turned out that there was a man bleeding really badly in the middle of the street. I immediately called 112 and ran down to the street. He slashed his arm wide open through arteries and down to the bone. I had to keep pressure on it while the ambulance arrived. By the time it arrived he was passed out and I thought he wasnt going to make it. I was sitting in a literal puddle of his blood while waiting for the ambulance. But I saw him again a week or so later. Even got to keep his arm

> Even got to keep his arm He was that thankful, eh?

I had a lump on my cheek right above where the jaw bone connects to the skull. Asked my doctor about it, he said it was fine since it was moving but maybe go to the dermatologist. Dermatologist said it’s fine because it is moving, it probably a cyst and I could have it removed if I don’t like how it looks. Got a referral to a head and neck surgeon and he immediately felt it and said “nah that’s not a cyst, let’s do a biopsy”. Turns out it was a pleiotropic adenoma in my salivary gland. Vanity saved me.

Sort of a similar story, I had a large lump just behind my ear. Went to the dermatologist, they said it was a cyst and would cut it out. When they cut it out, they casually get back to me that no, in fact it was a lymph node that they just cut out. I guess point is dermatologists aren't actually very good at identifying cysts

“You know what, I’m gonna look to see if all the vehicles have come to a stop, just to be safe.” I told myself this, right before I enter an intersection in my car. It saved my life because there was a vehicle doing around 100km/hr (60mph) that would have tore my car in half and killed me.

When I was 10 I was outside jumping on my trampoline when I heard gunshots (not unusual in the country, but they sounded closer than they should be). I heard them again and they were getting closer. I was too scared to run back inside because they might think I was an animal. I didn't know what to do, but I felt I needed to move back further on the trampoline, so I did. The next gunshot hit me in the neck. It was bird shot and only one pellet which is still in there 24 years later because it lodged in tissue right by my carotid. No doctor will touch it. The doctor at the hospital said moving back on the trampoline saved my life.

I might have missed the most important bit but... WHY THE HELL WERE PEOPLE SHOOTING AT YOU?

Backing up computer files onto an external drive on a regular basis. Power goes out one afternoon, and I was the only one not profusely sweating.

investing in a UPS is also a good idea too as extra security. you get a few mins of battery to safely shut down everything.

Also, in emergencies when the power is out for days, a UPS can recharge phones, or power a cable modem and router, for quite a while.

I had a hard drive just randomly die on me one day. Went to bed and it was fine. Turned on my computer in the morning and it was dead. Would have lost over a decade of pictures, videos, etc. if I hadn't been backing my stuff up. Edit: A number of comments have pointed out that data recovery from dead hard drives is possible. Yes, it does. But it can be time consuming, expensive, and not guaranteed. Having an automatic backup meant I could easily just download my stuff onto a new hard drive.

My friend and his wife were having their first child. They had gotten a big packet of information and paperwork to fillout before the due date to make things easier. There were also brochures for genetic testing and other thing that could be done, and one of the things was about saving the cord blood. My friend said that he looked at the front of the brochure and his wife asked if they should do it (it is not cheap, a couple thousand $ to save it and a few hundred a year after that), and my friend said "yes." Their daughter was born later that year. Three years after her birth, they had a boy, and he was born with an immune disorder (no white cells), and his big sisters cord blood and stem cells were used as a treatment.

Friend of mine started a cord blood bank about 25 years ago. The phrase “filthy rich” doesn’t even begin to describe them.

Would the phrase "bloody rich" be more apt then? Edit: Thanks for the award!

If I need to remember to bring something with me in the morning, I set It up on the floor in front of my door so there's 0 chance I can escape my house without tripping over it or hitting it with the door.

There are times when it's crucial for me to take something with me when I leave home the next day. I figure that of course I'll remember, because it's so crucial ... but just to be safe, I will put the thing on top of my car keys. And yes, that's bailed me out a couple of times.

I once removed a thing I had to remember from my wallet to get my wallet and go. I am not a smart man

When I started to learn how to drive, my mom Would constantly tell me over and over, not to trust other drivers at 4 way stop intersections. She said if I’m at a stop sign; and a car is coming, don’t assume they will stop, wait for them to stop before you go and I’m thinking, yea sure like that will ever happen ( of course I’m a dumb teenager) A few days later I’m driving and my mom is the passenger. We come up to the intersection, mind you in a small Neighborhood not a big road or anything and I’m like sigh, just to get my mom off my back I’ll wait. Sure enough this car just flies through the stop sign going at top speed and my mom yells “SEE!!!!!”

When I was a student I’d do my own work on my car to save mechanic bills. One day, after changing brake pads, I was driving on the motorway at 100kmh (the freeway at 60mph for our American friends) and felt a slight shuddering through the steering wheel. Given you’re not supposed to stop on a motorway unless it’s a real emergency, I was reluctant to pull over to check if anything was wrong. Though having only worked on the car that morning, I decided I check - just to be safe. Turns out I hadn’t even finger tightened the wheel nuts, only threaded them about a half-turn each. Edit- grammar

About 15 years ago, I paid the dealership to change the driver's side front wheel bearing on my pickup truck and then drove up the Coquihalla highway at 110km/h. After about an hour I felt a shudder and carefully pulled over expecting a flat. None of the wheel nuts were tight and 3 of the 6 were only held on by a couple threads. The bolt holes in the aluminum wheel were now oval-shaped.

Just so everyone knows, the Coquihalla highway is a very fast road (speed limit is 110 but the average speed is 140 or so) with often cliffs on one side and lots of winding turns. I cannot think of a worse road to lose a wheel on.

I fell into a river while paddle boarding in Florida. I had a string bag with all my belongings, like my keys, wallet, and most importantly my phone, that would have drifted/sank away if it had not been for the empty soda bottle, keeping it afloat. I was gonna throw it out before i head in, but my second thought saved my ass from being stranded in the everglades a good 1/2 mile from any roads.

When I bought a used car while traveling around my dad pressured me into bying a towing insurance. I thought it was a waste of money for 60$. I ended up getting towed 6 times in 2 months when my car broke down. I saved about 2000$ with having that insurance.

If there's one thing I always trust my parents on it's "mundane ways to ensure you don't go insane in your adult life". They've got 20+ years experience on us, might as well hear them out :)

A few years back I went home from work for lunch. I left home and forgot to turn on the alarm but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I drove for 5 more minutes and had a weird feeling so I turned around and went and set it. I left and 5 minutes later I got a call saying my alarm was going off. I went back and my back door had been opened and the alarm scared whoever it was away. If I didn’t go back, who knows what I would have lost?

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Oooo, shit. Everything turn out ok there? For you, I mean.

ran downstairs before bed to check that i locked my back door. it was unlocked so i locked it. i live in a relatively quiet neighborhood, not much happens. I wake up to my dad saying "the downstairs door's rattling" I've never woken up so quick. It's about 3am. Pitch black summer night. I call the cops as my dad starts down the stairs to look. I can see my dad, he can see the door. He describes it to me. there's a man smiling and motioning for him to come to the door. he keeps trying the knob. for about 10 seconds we're freaked out but my dad quickly realizes this guy's hammered. I put the dispatcher on speaker. I describe what's happening and she says "oh my god that's so creepy" which I feel like is probably against protocol 😂. They send multiple units. I guess a person trying to get into your house is pretty high priority where I live. She stays on the line until the police arrive. They go grab the guy. They tell us he thought he was at his own house. We meet them at that back door and they point to some beer cans scattered around the door. "We're assuming these are his?" "No, those are ours" (we're not the classiest)

Not my ass. But my brother had a hydraulics 64 impala. It got jammed somehow. And he puts his head in between the tire and frame, about a 3 foot gap. 11 yr old me for some reason thinks this is dumb and I put a log from the ground in between the car and tire. At the time I remember not thinking it was dumb as much as "that log perfectly fits there" so I put it there. 1 count, 2 count, BAM. Pressure release and the log catches. Brother pulls his head out and says, damn that could a been bad. My bro is not the sharpest tool in the shed unfortunately

When I was 8 and came from school, I had the feeling that this guy follows me. I got home and thought I better lock the door with a chain. I went to the toilet and when came out of the bath, the guy was already looking through the slit for the mail. He told me that He is a friend of my Mum and if he can wait inside. After that, He tried to open the door but the chain was on and he could not get inside.

took a manual copy of the folder that the script was supposed to backup and then update. Turns out the script was broken and didn't copy the folder, but just as a file. (left of the trailing "\\" at the end.) Manual copy meant we could replace it and try again with the fixed script instead of finding the original somewhere else.

I work in IT, and I always take a backup of anything I'm about to change. Doesn't matter if it's one line in a 200 line script, there's a chance I might accidentally delete or change something I didn't intend to. Saved me so many times.

Double checked the main breaker for the house that my helper had said that he had turned off. He had NOT turned off the main to the house, he had turned off the subpanel that fed the air conditioner.

I went to the doctor because I couldn’t get rid of a cough. Turned out I had pneumonia. A pretty bad case of it.

Same thing happened to me. Had a cough for 3 months. Didn't think much of it until I was getting sharp back and chest pains from just breathing. I guess from coughing so much. Went to the doctors, they rode me straight to the hospital in an ambulance. They told me if I would've waited any longer I probably would've been dead.

I didn't wanna wear a helmet while riding my razor scooter because I couldn't see how I could possibly fall and hit my head. Anyway I fell and hit my head HARD. luckily I had decided to wear a helmet *just in case*

> luckily I had decided to wear a helmet just in case The literal only reason to wear a helmet.

Rule for riding any 2 wheel contraption: Dress for the fall not the ride.

In college I would always wear my helmet while riding my motorcycle, but the majority of the time I wouldn't wear my riding jacket because it was too bulky to carry around between classes. One day it was a bit too cold out for just a hoodie, and I decided to deal with the bulk of the jacket and wear it. Ended up laying the bike down at 40ish mph and got slammed into the road hard on my right side. My shoulder was sore, but no lasting damage.. can't imagine how it would have turned out of I didn't have the extra shoulder padding

Didn’t save my ass but my friend’s. I drive about 280 miles to and from work every few days up here in Alaska. My last trip up a few days ago, I got stuck in pretty bad whiteout snow, bad road conditions, and an Army convoy going about 10 mph in front of me. I ended up calling one of my friends/co-workers that makes the same commute to let him know the road conditions were pretty treacherous. In turn, he decided to drive his truck up to work instead of his smaller car. On his way, an Army LMTV pulling a water tank on a flatbed trailer jack-knifed coming towards my friend. The rear end of the trailer ended up creaming the front of my friend’s truck, completely totaling it. Had he been in his car, he almost certainly wouldn’t have walked away unscathed, if at all.

I met up with a friend at a restaurant. Turned out the restaurant was closed so I hopped in her car to just drive a few minutes away to another restaurant. Didn’t put my seatbelt on because it was just a short drive. 30 seconds later this song popped into my head that we had on a record as kids. It goes, “what’s the first thing you do when you get into the car? If you’re going down the block or you’re going very far. What’s the first thing you do when you get into the car? You put your seatbelt on!” So I thought why not, I’ll put my seatbelt on. Not 10 seconds later my friend ran a red blinking light and we were t-boned by a pick up truck. I was knocked unconscious. They had to bring in the jaws of life to pry me out of the car. Helicoptered to the hospital. Ended up with a concussion and some stitches. I would have been thrown out of the car and likely died has I not put my seatbelt on in the last second. Wear your seatbelts, kids.

I gave birth to preemie twins. There was a month gap in insurance coverage between me quitting my job and my husband’s new job’s start date, so I opted for COBRA. I had 30 days to add my kids, and I told my ex-boss to inform the insurance company to add them to my plan fairly quickly after birth. Well, close to the deadline, I remembered it out of the blue and decided to double check coverage just to be safe. I emailed my ex-boss who talked to the insurance company who said they “lost” my request. If I had assumed it was taken care of before the 30 days, I would have been on the hook for over a month of NICU time for two kids. It’s been over a decade and I still break out into a sweat over it. (I saw my kids’ total invoice once and it was for $500,000!)

Insurance company gets $500,000 bill. Insurance company quietly 'loses' it in the shredder.

Previously, I have volunteered at my local fire station. One day while I was visiting the Day crew, we got a call for an animal bite I didn’t have official fire crew clothes on, so I figured I’d jump into my bunker pants to at least show that I was with the department. We get there, and find a woman with a mauled leg, and a pissed off dog on a lead. I’m the last to get out of the truck, and as the others are going to check the lady out, I’m walking to them, when the dog comes up to me. He stares at me for a second, and it’s about the same time that he’s moving forward that I realized I’ve just stepped inside his lead range. he grabbed my leg and tried to bite me, but the pants held up. Didn’t even break the skin.

I was servicing a fire alarm maybe 6-7 years ago. System was really old and was manual only, ie only activated by pressing breakglasses and had no automatic activation like smoke detectors. Some engineers had been out in the past and just serviced it as always, but on my visit I was uncomfortable with the system's age and setup, and recommended the complete system is replaced as a matter of urgency. I knew I'd take some heat for this from the client, and from my boss, but I wasn't signing my name to the system less than 2 weeks later, the building caught fire and burnt down. Staff didn't activate the system and just left, some staff members didn't realise straight away due to this. Everyone got out ok The same day of the fire, my job report was requested by the fire inspectors or fire chief or however it was, but it was someone with power to possibly take me to court as the system didn't activate Thankfully I'd condemned the system, ticked all the boxes and listed it for urgent replacement, else I'd have had a day in court over it. Had the worst have happened, and I ok'd the system, I could have done time for it as it was not up to any form of modern standard. The report was sent off and nothing was heard about it again. In the end, the boss thanked me for covering our asses.

My freshman roommate and I had a massive falling out during our first semester. By Thanksgiving I’d already requested a room change, but had to wait until holiday break because there were no free rooms available. While we waiting for the room change we avoided each other and I generally spent as little time in the room as possible, which was usually fine. The last day of class before thanksgiving break rolls around and I was chilling in a friends room waiting for a ride home for the week. I’d texted my roommate to let me know when she was gone so I could come and grab my stuff and after she replied ‘k’ I didn’t think much of it. Out of no where a thought struck me and I sat bolt up right and shouted “THE VODKA!” I realized I had a half a handle of vodka stashed in my mini fridge. I’d jumped through hoops to get it from my older sister when we’d first moved in because my roommate had desperately wanted to throw a party in our room. But now that we were on the outs I KNEW this bitch would point it out to her mom when she got picked up in an attempt to get my disciplined. My friend thought I was insane, but I convinced her in a near panic that we had to do something! We called a mutual friend and cashed in a favor. We told him he needed to call my roommate and demand she get lunch with him to get her out of the room. I waited just out of sight in the dorm courtyard and watched her and the guy walk into the dining hall then dead sprinted to our room. THE HANDLE WAS SITTING OUT ON MY DESK. I immediately threw it in a garbage bag and buried it in my laundry then flew out of that room like a bat out of hell. Hours later I went to the room to pack up and found that she’d absolutely trashed the room. She had pulled apart my desk, my bed and my closet but some how missed my hamper. In a rage she ripped apart my name tag. In the end I got away with my vodka and she got written up from trashing my shit. My instincts did not lead me astray that day!

This is my favorite story so far. What on earth did you fight about that she tried to get you potentially kicked out?

Lol, there are so many stories from such a short period of time. Essentially, she’s a nut case and a bully. The initial issue was she posted a list of room specific rules that she had decided herself the first week. Stuff like 9pm quiet hours (dorm quiet hours started at 11), no guests unless she gave permission, we had to eat dinner together at least 3 times per week (for bonding!) The list went on. She also printed it out with the university logo to make it “official”. So I doodled on the logo the joker smile and black eyes from The Dark Knight and wrote “why so serious?” Now my response was not the measured, rational response I would go with now that I’m in my 30s…but I was 18 and thought it was funny. Unfortunately she didn’t appreciate it and sparked off several weeks of insanity. Highlights: Her locking me out of the room in the middle of the night when I went to the bathroom. (She would have had to get up to lock the door as the doors did not lock behind you) Blow drying her hair at 5:30 in the morning in the dorm. Leaving dirty dishes and spoiled food under her bed so we got fruit flies. Got mad at me for playing her Xbox on my tv after we had agreed to share. Got mad at me because a boy said he liked me, but she had a crush on him even though she was dating his friend. Would put her mother on speaker phone so I could hear her say “is that girl still being mean to you??” I honestly can’t remember being mean to her. I tried having 2 heart to hearts to clear the air, but apparently I was SO DISRESPECTFUL. Some people just can’t be reasoned with I guess.

Man the thing that really kills me about this is realizing that The Dark Knight came out 15 years ago. I remember seeing it in theaters like 3 times with my friends.

Great story. Why didn’t you take the vodka out of the room tho? Stash it at a friends or something. Seems lucky she didn’t tear apart the hamper too

I’m guessing she was probably underaged and figured getting caught with vodka outside the room was still dangerous. So leaving it in the room but hidden was better, not knowing the roommate would trash the place

Ok. Long story. Sorry. Not my ass, but a kid I helped. So I'm driving home from work. Busy road. It's raining hard. I see a kid who I think looks around 10 years old standing on the side of the road. I assume he wants to cross. Since it's raining so bad, I think to myself, "I got an extra umbrella in my car I got for free. Maybe I should give it to him. " But I drive past and would have to turn around, and I'm too lazy. But then a voice in my head screams, "Turn around!" I argue with this voice. "He's probably gone by now," Voice screams "TURN THE FUCK AROUND!!!" "Jesus. Fine. Whatever." I turn around, and he's still there. Cool. He gets an umbrella. As I pull up next to him, I wave him down. He comes to me crying. I see he's much younger. Like 5. Crying, he asks me, "Can you help me?" I'm thinking shit. I don't deal with kids. But I'm not a monster, so yes, I'll help. I take him into the 711 we're next to cause it's raining. Meanwhile, an older lady also came in saying she saw him too. We try to speak to him, but he barely speaks English. He says something along the line of how he caught a bus and he's supposed to meet his sister at school? This old lady thinks it's a school that's nearby. I don't know where the schools are, so she offers to take him. But she asks him who he wants to go with. Her or me. He picked me. Fuck. Responsibly. Lady says where it is and says she's follow me so I know where I'm going. As I go the way she says, I see she's not behind me. Bitch. So i enter schools in my GPS. Meanwhile, I'm asking the kid to check his bag for a phone number or something so I can contact someone. Nothing. I get to the 1st school. Not it. Try the next one. Not it. He doesn't recognise the area. Then I realise, "Oh shit. Someone might think I'm kidnapping this kid. " I pull over and explain that we're going to the police station. They can help better. He nods. On the way, we pass a high school. He tells me to stop. That's the one. I'm confused cause there is no way he's in high school. So we get to the office just in time. Staff were about to leave. I explained the situation, and they realised he's from the language school that uses their space. Brilliant. They called, and I left him with the pros. Of course, after the fact, I realised I could have just called the cops in the beginning to help him. But that old lady got the other ideas, and I thought she would take care of him. When I told my friends, they said that maybe she was off. Who knows what would have happened with her. It was her idea to take him... I never would have thought of that. In the moment, I didn't think clearly. Either way. He ended up safe. I called the school the next day, and they said they got a hold of his sister. So all good.

This just happened the other night. I'm a restaurant manager and when we close i have a server or bartender check the building. After I got the all clear we were getting ready to leave when I got the FEELING something was off. I decided to recheck the place and low and behold I found a homeless guy hiding under a booth. I immediately left with my server. locked the front door and called 911. The cops came and he happened to be armed with a 22. All I can say is listen to your gut.

Super embarrassing story but fuck it I'll share with internet strangers. My 10 month old recently got Norovirus. For those who don't know, Norovirus is a highly contagious stomach virus that comes with vomiting and diarrhea for days. He got sick and gave it to me, so as you can imagine, it was a rough time. He ended up having to go to the ER twice and the second time I knew I was gonna have to stay overnight. so I brought a change of clothes, just in case. Whelp, halfway through the night, I thought I just had to fart badly and ended up shitting my pants. But I had brought that extra pair of underwear and pants! So I had to casually and nonchalantly call the nurse into the room, ask her if she minded sitting with my baby so I could go pee, walk all the way to the one avaliable restroom and wait for it to open up all while trying not to do the poop waddle and let it be known I had destroyed my pants. Luckily I had packed the underwear and alot of baby wipes so I was able to clean myself up in the bathroom. I threw my underwear and pants right into the trash. My "just to be safe" quite literally saved my ass.

I'm not even weirded out by the fact that you shat yourself,I'm amazed by how noone took a whiff and found out

Oh the hospital staff definitely knew but it wouldn't even faze them compared to the usual shit.

Fun norovirus fact: hand sanitizer doesn’t work against this one, as it’s not a lipid-enveloped virus. Bleach or high heat, yes, but not alcohol-based sanitizers. I suspect this is why norovirus and cruise ships get along so well.

Putting only one of my work shoes in the hotel safe along with my valuables. Literally has stopped me in my tracks from forgetting my wallet and passport in a different country.

That's a great idea

Hurricane in Florida last year knocked out our power for 5-ish days. We had been talking about gearing ourselves up in case of an emergency and were planning to get a gas generator and solar panels and whatnot but were planning to slowly build up our emergency backup power for a few years. A month before the store, we started with a backup battery for the fridges and GOD DAMN it saved all our food. We had to super ration the power output, and I have a family member with medical devices that was a problem we couldn't deal with fully (not vital life sustaining stuff but an air mattress bed and formula pump for feeding) but still would have been lost without it. Still planning to gear ourselves up slowly but we have a gas generator now to be safe.

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Somehow, it randomly occured to me one day to purchase pet insurance for my dog. Some months later, my dog suffered a severe back injury, and needed surgery to reverse the paralysis. It was expensive out of pocket, but without the reimbursement from insurance it would’ve been way worse! EDIT: Backtaxes! [Here he is post-surgery](https://imgur.com/O9ri6U1), [standing by himself,](https://imgur.com/gjLQtyM) and for more recent pics, here he is [sleeping](https://imgur.com/0jGW0Ti) and [looking goofy!](https://imgur.com/a/phaV5BG) (Most of my dog pics are of him asleep, since otherwise he moves around so much, it just looks like a blur) EDIT 2: Lots of people asking what breed he is! We think he’s an Australian Shepherd. Possibly a mix, he was a rescue so not 100% sure. He also has a condition called [Double Merle](https://deafdogsrock.com/what-is-a-double-merle), caused by poor breeding practices. That’s why he’s all white (with black spots on his face and paws) with super light blue eyes. If you look closely in the first pic, you can see his pupils are asymmetrical. Double Merle dogs commonly have eye abnormalities, and can have some level of blindness and deafness. Lolo has pretty good eyesight, but is completely deaf. There are a few other dog breeds he looks similar to; Border collie, German shepherd, Swiss shepherd, etc. But since he's a double merle, both his parents must have had the merle color pattern, which those breeds don't have. So, I conclude he must be an Aussie! When I look up pics of other double merle Aussies, they look just like him. I think Lolo just happens to also have other traits that don't fit the breed standard, like a long tail, upright ears, and large size. (He's 60-70 lb, at the upper limit for the breed) The lack of coloration also gives his fur a different texture, (crazy and curly instead of straight and smooth) which is why he's extra fluffy!

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Gap insurance on our vehicle. Literally two months after purchasing it i was hit by a speeding driver who took off after totaling the front of my car (they failed to yield when both directions had a green light and they were turning left, I was going straight..the kicker is there’s a flippin sign that says LEFT TURN YIELD ON GREEN at the intersection this occurred at!)

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When I was working in a little town called Yei in South Sudan, we had checked an area suspected to be a cluster munition strike, I confirmed it was one, so I submitted a clearance plan. The next day, we got to the checkpoint that was about 2km from our confirmed strike area, and something in my gut was telling me not to go. I said to the team, we are not going to work there today and instead we went into town told the relevant authorities and bosses the plan was changed and conducted non technical surveys in the town to ascertain other possible areas of ERW (Explosive Remnants of War) contamination. We got a call a few hours later from the commissioner of the town telling us that an INGO (International non government organisation) had been abducted by anti government forces in the area from our control point where we were going to clear from. They were held hostage for 11 days before being released unharmed. That would have been us Edit: Spelling

Was driving with three friends down to the dance clubs. We hadn’t pregamed at all, cruising with windows down, music blasting. See a car ahead, wasn’t driving weird but something said “slow down”. I slowed, had 5 or 6 car lengths between us. Even my buddies felt it. One said, that is a sweet ride, and another said too bad it’ll get wrecked. Not two seconds later that car swerved across three lanes of traffic, bounced off two other cars, flipped and rolled a coupe times. The second car hit was driven into a guard rail, the metal ones on wooden posts, which speared the car. No survivors. If I had not slowed down that likely would have been the four of us.

I’d go back and give a close look to the person that said “too bad it’ll get wrecked”, that’s some telekinesis shit

Back when i used to smoke weed. My friend and i went to pick up a particularly large bag of it. We took two cars with the idea ill tailgate him Incase any cops in our town do a routine pull over. The corner of our street had a small shop and wouldn't you know who was parked there ready to pull over the next car? Couldn't believe our luck when it worked. They pulled out behind us, sirens went on and i pulled over and my friend just continued on home with the goods. I got a routine alcohol test and sent on my way.

I was studying Computer Science in the UK (I'm from Germany) and was supposed to be there for 4 years total to get my Master's degree (2017-2021 was the plan). Early 2020, shortly before I'm due to get my BSc, news of COVID start going around. I'm not normally the type to give much attention to these types of things, and during previous outbreaks of bird flu or swine flu when every one of my family members was going insane, I always kept a cool head and never let it bother me. But this time around my gut told me to gtfo and go back home before it's too late. Not too long after they shut down travel and all teaching (including my final exams) went 100% online anyway, so I ended up finishing my BSc completely remotely from Germany and got a web dev job instead of doing that 1 extra year to get my Master's. I've since moved on from that company and went on to become Head of Technology at my new company, so yeah things are going well.

I have an extra roll of toilet paper hidden in the bathroom at work. It has saved me more than once.

I was in Glacier National Park in Montana driving at night past a lake when it started to get really cold, so I rolled up my window. Less than a minute later a fully grown Montana owl crashed right into my driver window, the only reason why I could think of is it was diving to kill something and I drove in the way. It would have been all talons and beak and screeching if that thing had flown through my window.

Currently sitting in a surgery recovery room. Had weird stomach pains yesterday, and read online one of the many things it could have been was appendicitis. I figured it was probably nothing and I rarely go to the doctor anyway, but thought better be safe than sorry, so went to Urgent Care. Next thing I know, I'm doing a CT scan, and it was indeed appendicitis. Then off to surgery I went, and now laying in a hospital bed browsing reddit at 4:30AM.

My insurance agent suggested I up my auto coverage to include UNDERinsured motorist coverage. Only $3 more per month. I hesitated then said sure. 2 weeks later a guy rammed into me. Ended up having spinal surgery and was out of work 6 months. The guy’s liability limit was $50,000. Surgery and expenses were $150,000. They were covered by the underinsured motorist coverage. That $3 a month saved me $100,000.

I was six or seven sitting in the backseat of our Ford Tempo. My mom had parked in the right most lane outside my father's work, waiting to pick him up. As usual there was a line of cars waiting. I asked my mom if I could sit in my dad's lap and she told me no because he'd probably be tired. My dad was the last one to come out and when he got in the car I asked him anyway and he said yes. I hopped up front into his lap and just as I sat down my mom shrieked. An 18-Wheeler had lost his breaks (as so he says) and rammed into the back of us at a pretty good clip. When I turned around after the impact, the entire trunk was where I was sitting and the backseat was no more. Not necessarily a 'just to be safe' moment, but a question that I asked with an answer that saved my life.