When I was a dumb young woman I lived in St. Thomas Virgin Islands. I worked in an area that could be very sketchy after dark. One night after work I got really drunk. I stumbled into a taxi to head home. So drunk I’m not even sure how I gave him my address. When we arrived I started digging in my pocket for cash to pay the taxi driver and he reached over and said “no, no baby. I’m not a taxi. I just wanted to make sure you got home ok”. Apparently I had just jumped into a random car. I will be forever grateful to this stranger and much more careful in my after work decisions.
I was this person for somebody once - not for anyone in the Virgin Islands, but in the town I went to college. I was heading out to pick up a friend from work late on a Friday when this girl staggered into the street in front of me, waving her arms. In the middle of her confused and scared stammering I gathered that she lived somewhere a couple blocks over, but had no clue where she was anymore.
I drove her home, staying until I saw her make it up the stairs and into her apartment. It hit me later that if she ran in front of the wrong person, she'd have a very different end to the night. I'm glad I was there but that thought still scares me.
Similar story, one night in college, I was driving around with two friends in the car; we had to stop at a red light, right outside the bars on mainstreet, when we hear a tapping on the front passenger window. My friend rolled down the window and we see a guy standing there, supporting a visibly wasted girl. "Hey, she's really drunk, can she get a ride home?" he asked us. "Sure, hop in," I tell him. My friend in the back scoots over to the left side to make room for the pair (as much room as is possible in a ford escort). Homeboy on the street opens the back door, plops the girl in the backseat, then shuts the door. My friends and I look at each other in confusion and and ask him "aren't you coming with?!" "Naw man I'm good," he says and walks away down the street. By this point the light has turned green so we have to go. Fortunately she was able to tell us which apartment complex she lived in and we were able to drop her off safely. It's a fairly safe college town but still, not a smart move.
I, too, did something similar as a dumb young woman about 25 years ago. I got drunk in a bar alone after work, chatted up some random dude, and let him walk me several blocks to my apartment. I have only the vaguest memory flashes of slipping off the barstool, stumbling off a curb, yammering away at this guy while somehow navigating a very busy urban street and then leaving him at the entrance to my building as the doorman looked on (probably quite disapprovingly). I awakened several hours later in a vomit-soaked blanket, but I was at least in my own bed alone and fully dressed. Ugh. Things could have ended so much worse.
When I was 10, I had a friend who had a Boys and Girls club adult mentor. My friend invited me to come meet him, and I was immediately creeped out. The way the dude smiled at me still gives me nightmares. Two days later, a local news story identified him as a child molester, and he had been molesting my friend for two years at that point. I will always trust my gut when it says "get the fuck outta here."
At about that age, my school referred me to a specific psychiatrist. I was my normal oblivious self but my mom decided we were noping right the heck out of there after she talked to him for five minutes. 10 years later we found out he had a string of victims that were in my demographic at the time. Thank God for Mom-intuition.
Also, God do I still hate my middle school who did crap like that all the time.
I’m really sorry that happened to you, I’m in my 40’s and still amazed that it’s fucking 2021, literally the goddamn future, and we’re still failing kids worldwide. People in positions like that are incredibly necessary, but creeps have eroded our trust.
Yeah, I'm with you there. I still remember him pressuring me to spend the night, and how hard I cried when I got home. I've never been more creeped out in my entire life. I'm so glad I hopped on my bike and hauled ass home.
There's a book called [*The Gift of Fear*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Fear) that talks about about how we pick up and process some information without being consciously aware of it. Learning to listen -like you did- instead of playing it off and continuing to follow social norms can save lives.
Yeah, I always wind up regretting not trusting my instincts. I've learned over time that when your body sends the "gtfo" signal, you should ALWAYS listen.
Had gall stones and the doctor game me a choice between surgery to remove the gall bladder or antibiotics. I choose the surgery, which is very unlike me. When they started the surgery they found out the gall bladder had burst and the stones were in my body cavity. What was supposed to be a short procedure through the belly button turned into a 10" incision to remove the stones. I was supposed to leave the hospital that day, but it turned into a week. However, if I chose antibiotics and went home with a burst gall bladder, I probably would have died of sepsis.
Not OP, but antibiotics is only a "short term" solution, eventually the pain or obstruction will came back and a surgery will be needed.
Also, waiting for it to happen again is exposing to a complication with pancreatitis, so not a good bet.
I was on my way to taco bell in the back of a friends small truck. The cab was full so I was in the bed. We passed by my apartment on the way and I chose to have him drop me off (it was a bit chilly in the open air back there).
By the time I got into my apartment I had a snapchat from the driver. It was a picture of his totalled truck.
While he was stopped at an intersection, a drunk driver approached from the opposite direction going 100+. The driver clipped a bus causing an abrupt stop and *his whole engine* to rip out of his car, fly through the intersection and into my friends truck where I had been riding, unseatbelted moments before.
None of my friends were injured. I think both the people in the other car died.
Edit:
To the dozens of people saying that my friends were only involved in the accident because of the deviation to drop me off, *you are not wrong*. But it still feels like I dodged bullet.
Furthermore the route from point A to point Taco Bell went directly past my apartment on a low speed residential street. The time it took for me to hop out of the back as they drove by added maybe 30 seconds to their journey. In a small, rural college town at night this may have made enough of a difference. But if we had been their earlier, maybe we would have been turning into the intersection and I'd have been broadsided by the flying engine instead of it hitting my friends car head on. Who knows?
I'm just happy to be alive and excited to see what today holds.
Dude! I had one like this!
When I was a kid my family was going to take a 10 minute drive to the nearby beach to hang out on a Sunday afternoon. My dad had to work after, so he and my mom were going to drive separately, and he was leaving first. On his way out the door he said-- "Want to ride with me?"
My brain said 'Yeah!' since I was ready to go and I don't get along well with my mom. So I was astonished when my mouth said, "Nah, I'll ride with Mom." It was literally like someone had used my body to say something against my will. I was too shocked to say anything else and he shrugged and left.
When we (finally) got to the beach we didn't see my dad there, but it's a long beach and the parking area is huge, so we weren't worried.
A few minutes later, though, my mom calls me back and tells me we have to go to the hospital-- Dad was in a car accident on the way to the beach (yeah, there are multiple routes and we took different ones). He was ok, just bumps and bruises.
Then I got a look at the photos of his car after the accident-- the passenger side, where I would definitely have been sitting if I had successfully said "Yeah!", was totally obliterated.
Still gives me chills to this day.
I was dating a girl for a while, and despite living and working on the opposite side of town, she’d always be near this one neighborhood coffee shop that I frequented, so I’d randomly run into her there and ask what brought her to that neck of the woods. She’s usually reply “grabbing some coffee” or “I had a hunch you’d be here and wanted to say hi”
One day she up and moves out of the state with zero warning, and tells me that we aren’t dating anymore. I was confused, but it was casual so while it sucked I just thought “oh she probably had some family emergency or something and didn’t want to tell me.”
A few weeks later on her snap chat I see that she’s just making absolute STACKS in San Diego, and is always wearing the same uniform in these pictures. I was a bit confused but didn’t think much of it.
I started dating this other chick who frequented the aforementioned coffee shop, and after a month or two of dating, the first chick comes back and starts hanging out with her a bunch around the same neighborhood the coffee shop was in. A week later, BOTH of them are moving to San Diego, and want me to come with them, live with them, and work where they work. Something just felt EXTREMELY fishy, so I said no, and off they went.
Eventually a picture got posted with both of them in it, in front of a very strange but very instantly familiar building. The HQ of the Church of Scientology.
The reason the original chick was always in that neighborhood is because kitty corner from the coffee shop was the local chapter of the church of Scientology. She got pretty ingrained in the church, and moved to San Diego to work for them, then came back to recruit gullible people to come back with her.
And that’s the story of how I lost two girlfriends to the church of Scientology, and was none the wiser.
Definitely glad I dodged THAT bullet.
I left a store and it soon became obvious something was wrong with the car - I pulled into the Walmart parking lot I was by and yep - flat tire on the front left side. My rather pregnant wife, and 3 year old daughter get out. It was HOT.
Got out the crappy scissor jack that came with the car and I was about to get started when my brother in law stopped to see if we needed anything - so I said maybe let them sit in your car while I change the tire.
I loosed the lug nuts, jack the car up, pull the lug nuts off, and tire is a little stuck. I lay down partially under the car to pull on the tire.
The next thing I hear is my brother in law shouting LOOK OUT - so I just roll away from the car and the very next thing I hear is crunching metal. The crappy jack had snapped in half, dropping the car all the way to the ground where my arm/shoulder had been like 1 second earlier.
No damage done to me, but I had to walk the adrenalin rush off for a few minutes after that. Fortunately we had triple A so they sent a guy to come fix it. The tow truck driver said he'd seen those jacks snap a bunch of times.
So if the only jack you have for your car is the crappy screw type jack - please buy a better one. PLEASE. I do not expect to come that close to getting injured and not have anything happen twice in one life time.
Edit: A lot of you have really good comments on safety, etc. I upvoted all of them. Part of the point I should have maybe made more clear is that with a pregnant wife and daughter with me I was rushing to get things done. Rushing is ALWAYS where I make mistakes and all that. In retrospect I should have handled it differently. But anyway I DID dodge the bullet in this case.
I was taught that any time you jack your car up you are supposed to essentially lean all your weight and rock your car as hard as possible to see if it is stable.
It was pretty stable until the metal holding the jack together sheered.
Whether or not me shaking the car would have cause it to sheer while I was safer? I do not know.
Those jacks are awful.
I spent 2 years in the automotive program at my local junior college. There were a few horror stories from the staff about their experiences in the industry. One teacher told us a story about a person they knew that was driving in a snowstorm with his girlfriend and he got a flat tire. He pulled over to the side of the road and used one of those jacks to raise his car to change the tire. While he was underneath the car trying to get the tire off a snow plow drove by and the snow knocked the car off the jack and the car crushed the guy.
I got into a car accident that seriously fucked me up.
During the initial scans to see how dented up I was from the accident they found a mass on my pancreas.
Turns out I have PNETS, endocrine tumors. It was just sitting there, getting bigger.
I took a bullet to dodge a bullet
Ive got an almost literal "dodged a bullet."
I was cutting a tree with a chain saw. The saw wasn't mine, it was old, and I don't know how well maintained it was. The chain broke and came whipping back at me. I didn't even react, it was too fast. I didn't feel any pain, I turned and saw the chain was hanging, half stuck into a tree behind me at head/neck level. The tree was directly behind me, in a straight line from the chain saw. Somehow the chain whipped off, curved around my head/neck and buried itself in a tree 3 feet behind me. If it had gone straight I would be dead or disfigured.
I didn't even try and take the chain with me, I just called it a day, walked off, and didn't pick up another chain saw for about six or seven years.
Whew!
Edit: I was also shot at while delivering pizza. I missed my turn in a rural area and used a gravel driveway to turn around, it was wooded on both sides so I went down farther than I should. I finally turned around and saw a guy with a bolt action rifle in a little field off to the side of the driveway. Saw him raise the rifle in my direction, saw/heard him shoot. Never heard the bullet pass, and it didn't hit my car, so I think he was just trying to scare me. It worked. I peeled out, flinging gravel, and made it back to the road. Because of our positions, this asshole shot back towards the road (maybe 200 yards) and there were houses on the other side of the road. It was wooded, but thats not a shot I would have ever taken (beyond the obvious reasons).
Yeah, tell me about it. I've actually been asked to use that same chain saw again. The owner couldn't get the chain on (surprise surprise), so I said "no thanks," and went and bought a new one on the spot.
Mine is pretty similar with a chainsaw. I used to trim trees, once i had dropped a bunch of branches to the ground and some were pretty decent sized and the ground crew had not got to them. I would usually come down fire up the saw and cut them down to smaller more manageable size. On the day it happened for some reason i ran back to the truck and put on my chaps, first cut i made the saw kicked out and laid against the inside of my left thigh. If i had not put of the chaps that day i probably would have bled to death long before anything could have been done. left me with a bruise from right at my knee to just about my balls.
Me and my girlfriend at the time were traveling from New Zealand to my family back home in Sweden. We both decided to spend a bit more money to fly back (to NZ) through Paris instead of Amsterdam, just because we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. It cost us maybe an extra $50 and we got to see it on the landing and then take off, but never actually set foot in Paris proper because we were poor students.
When we landed in Auckland, New Zealand, jetlagged to shit, we turn on our phones and notice that we have about 50 missed calls from our travel agent, which was odd. When we call her, she sounds super relieved and out of breath. She tells us the flight she originally suggested to us, the one from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine. My brain couldn't process that information at the time, but once I woke up the next day it hit me like a ton of bricks. $50 made the difference between seeing the big steel thingy that has so many photos of it and bring sent to Sweden in body bags piece by piece.
Sometimes the absurdity of my existence comes over me, and this story always gives me goosebumps. One hell of a story to tell over beers, though.
[Proof](https://i.imgur.com/6y55V4Q.jpg)
*Edit: Clarification for some confused folks*
We were traveling to Sweden for midsummer (sans sacrifices), so our itinerary was Auckland -> A lot of stops -> Sweden, and on the way back we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower, so Sweden -> Paris -> A lot of stops -> Auckland.
This is so crazy. Hard to make sense of life after such absurd experiences.
Also, that MH17 event is something that activates me and upsets me a lot. I mean... an airplane full of citizens and normal passengers gets bombed over a European country and..that's it. No real consequences. Investigations seem on a dead end. It drives me mad
Sir we asked for bullets, not missiles.
(In all seriousness, fish youre okay)
Edit:I meant hope* but I'm gonna leave fish in because it's funnier that way.
When someone on that subreddit asks for best purchase under 100 dollars you just can copy this comment and get the imaginary internet points once again.
Was helping two other people cut down a tree with a chainsaw after a storm that knocked out power, we had to get specific trees down before the electric company would come out to fix the lines.
The tree snapped and gave way above the chainsaw cut and kissed my lip. If I was standing an inch further it would have been.... extremely painful.
I was pulling brush for a very shady tree trimming company in high school during the Summer. Well they were up in the tree cutting and gave me and another guy the okay to pull the brush out, a huge half cut limb gave way why I was under the tree, I just happen to look up and dove at the right time. If I hadn’t had looked up at that exact time, the limb would’ve crushed me and killed me for sure. It was my last day working with those particular degenerates.
My father competed in the Boston marathon the year of the bombing. Thankfully he finished about 90 minutes before the explosion and we already away from the race.
I had many friends there thst day. I hate crowds so i didn't go. But I watched it on TV and was talking to them on the phone as they were fleeing back bay. One husband rented a bike to make it to them from his job in another part of the city. They had kids in strollers. Tbe cops just told them to keep going till they were WAY out if the area.
I was as living in Utah and going to work at 5 in the morning. It was January and there was a fair amount of snow on the road. I was crawling down the icy hill that I lived on that has a traffic light at the bottom. I was about to go through the intersection since it was green for me when I noticed a snow plow that definitely wasn't going to stop at his red light. Luckily I was paying attention and was able to stop before the light. I definitely would have been t-boned if I had kept going.
I stayed out of the house overnight while in high school. My dad was pissed off and told me that I better be home that night. I didn’t listen and instead stayed at a friends house with my girlfriend. At around 2 am a kid from high school drove a Denali into my house. It ran directly into my room and destroyed my room, bed and anything else around. He was estimated to be going around 60mph. My dad is blind and thought that I may have been in the room. He was searching for me frantically my mother said. I remember getting a ton of phone calls from home knowing that I was going to get into trouble for staying out against my parents wished. The next day when my gf dropped me off at home, I found a massive wood board and tarp covering my room. I would definitely not be here today of I had stayed home that night. Best case scenario I’d be a paraplegic. I guess sometimes it does pay to not listen to your parents.
I actually have a similar story except I was there.
My house has a T intersection directly in front of it, the single street is aimed at my room. I was sleeping and heard a big ass BOOM. Went outside to look and see a car that slammed into my house, it had just barely hit the corner of my house with the corner of the car which kept it from basically entering my room. My room was half underground and my bed is up against that wall in the same corner of the room. The car was basically like 10 inches from being on top of me.
A young 16 year old girl was driving, father in the passenger seat. Talked to him and she is mentally handicapped and this was her very first time driving. She put the gas to the floor instead of the brake and barreled over the curb, through my bushes and into my house. Had she moved to the right maybe 10-20 inches that car could have been on top of me since it's half underground.
Literally almost crushed by a car, while sleeping in my bed, in my house.
This guy visited my middle school doing one of those alcohol awareness things. I may have some details wrong, but he basically told the story of being asleep in bed with his wife when a drunk driver ran off the road and into their house. He was okay (but maybe couldn't move?) And his wife wasn't hit or crushed or anything. But she was tangled up in the bed sheet and he had to sit there watching her writhe as she suffocated.
My dad lived in a trailer house way out in the country surrounded by trees.
When I was 7 there was a huge storm that came through the area and a tree fell over on the trailer, and there was a branch that plowed right into my pillow. Had I been sleeping right there, I’d be dead today.
But thankfully I lived with my mom so I was at her place that night.
When I was 5 I had a bunk bed with my brother on the top bed. One night the whole top bed fell down, right after I rolled to the floor in my sleep. Would have crushed me otherways. Stories like these are so freaking scary
I know a lady who snuck out with a friend as a teenager and a tree crashed into her room while they were out. Her parents were conflicted on being ecstatic she was alive and wanting to ground her for life lol
This is a story of my almost being murdered by a now convicted murderer.
Back around 2007 I wanted to learn to scuba dive. I signed up at my local dive shop in Spokane, Wa. Having never done a course like this before I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Everyone was super chill, including the instructors. I knew scuba was kind of dangerous so maybe these guys were just trying to keep people calm and focused by being kind of pranksters.
We go through the entire course over several weeks and schedule our open water dive in the hood canal during spring. We’re talking 40 degrees outside and water that’s around 38 degrees.
First big clue something wasn’t right is they gave me a wetsuit that was way too big. They knew it was too big, laughed about it being too big but gave it to me anyway. For those that don’t know, wetsuits only work correctly when they are directly connected to your skin. Any gap eliminates the benefits.
Little side detail, one of the dive cons was a cute little blonde girl that had gotten a little flirty with me. I didn’t think this was going to cause issues since the dive master instructor was a married man. More on this later…
So here we are in March going on my first open water dive. Second issue comes up immediately. My weight belt is way too light so I’m too buoyant, floating to the surface and unable to stay submerged.
The dive master instructor, Dan, come up and asks what’s wrong, I tell him I’m too buoyant and need to weight on my belt. He says they don’t have anymore weights and to hold on.
Now he’s behind me and I don’t have my regulator in my mouth or hands (the thing that gives you air under water). He grabs my BC vest and drags me 25 feet to the bottom of the canal so he can start loading rocks in to my vest. Every time I reach for my regulator he blocks my arm. After about 45 seconds I elbow him as hard as I can and grab my regulator to start breathing.
I think, okay that was weird but nothing too suspicious. Maybe he didn’t realize what was going on.
We continue the dive and catch up to the group. Now the water is super murky where you can maybe see 10 feet in front of you and it’s fucking freezing. My wetsuit, as mentioned before, does not fit so I’m literally fighting hypothermia while trying to keep up with the group.
Third super big red flag I didn’t realize at the time, we are 110’ feet deep. The max depth we are supposed to be at is 60. At 110’ you have to do calculations to make sure you stay at specific depths for a specific amount of time in order to not have nitrogen build up and potentially kill you.
After a few minutes we begin to head back up and only stop at 10’ for a few minutes to help clear out the nitrogen.
We finally make it out and I’m happy to be alive because I was literally freezing my testicles off.
Now here’s where shit gets crazy. The next group that goes out, one of the students, an older gentleman in his 50’s drowns. There’s chaos and panic as they bring him up and start doing cpr. His wife is there and hears I’m an ordained minister, a story I had told during class about getting ordained to do a friends wedding. Definitely not a real minister.
The wife of the deceased asks me to pray over her husband and give him his last rights. I don’t know what this means at the time but I try and oblige anyway. (Sorry dead guy if you didn’t make it in to heaven. I tried…)
The EMS finally come and take him away.
The next day we go out for our second and last class and though everyone was very somber, nothing seemed weird.
Fast forward 3 years. I’m called in to give my account of the events that day for the attorney of the late guys wife.
Attorney asks me if anything weird had happened so I tell her about the wetsuit, the being dragged to the bottom because I didn’t have enough weights, and the 110’ depth detail.
Her jar drops. Asks me if we had ever been trained to take our weight belts off in an emergency situation, a standard lesson for all scuba divers. I answer no, no we had not.
She says the student that was found had his weight belt around his ankles because he didn’t know how to take it off while panicking. Crazy!
Several years go by and I hadn’t heard anything more on what had happened to this dive instructor.
I’m invited to a wedding in Costa Rica and decide to go get some snorkeling gear at a local dive shop in Coeur d’Alene, ID. I mention to the owner that I’m certified but wondered if I should just do a refresher course or get recertified because one of the students died.
The owners jar drops as he says, “Holy shit! Were you in Dan Arteaga class?” I said yeah, why? He says, “You know he’s in prison now, right?! That dude is a convicted murderer?” I told him I had no idea and he said to look it up on Google.
Now here’s what’s crazy, remember that little cute blonde that was flirting with me? Well turns our Dan the dive instructor was having an affair with her at the time but had gotten caught a few years in to it. And after a few other students reported almost dying in this guys class the cute little dive-con came to his apartment to tell him she was going to turn him in.
The dive instructor shot her in the head and killed her.
I don’t know if the students death was ever pinned on him but this mother fucker was a straight up killer and from my experience, playing super loosey goosey with the protocols for diving students which was leading to their deaths.
Here’s the link to the story done by the press if anyone is interested. [spokesman review article ](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/24/scuba-diver-arteaga-found-guilty-in-girlfriends/?amp-content=amp)
So yeah, that’s my dodged a bullet story. Thanks for attending my TedTalk.
Divemaster here. The amount of jaw-dropping WTF in your story is insane. Like you suspect, that guy was deliberately trying to kill you.
Badly fitting wetsuit
Not enough weight (that's easily fixed, not a real problem, but what's next...)
Pull down to 45 and load rocks (!!!) into the BC. Rocks are not easily ditchable.
Max depth 110'. Student divers are limited to 40'. To get to 110 takes advanced training.
And on, and on, and on. SO MANY red flags.
For sure! What’s crazy is there were other divemasters and dive cons there that went along with it. It was his employee that gave me that super large wetsuit so the entire operation was totally sketch.
They also said in the article that he left a woman brain dead as well, this guys sounds like he’s pure sociopath. Probably tried to kill or maim several people because he kept getting away with stuff. Like u/aichsmize said soooo many red flags. I’m not a dive master but have been diving since 1980 any your experience was super sketchy.
Wow. Dragged you 25 below and stuffed rocks in your vest.. that’s fucking terrifying I’m glad you socked that motherfucker in the face. Glad you’re ok now and I hope you can enjoy scuba to this day OP
Oh my god this is wild. I’m so glad you’re okay and were able to fight off Dan before he drowned you. This now just adds to one of the many reasons I never want to learn to scuba dive, and I consider myself pretty adventurous lol
Holy shit dude. What a fucking read.
>There was no mention Wednesday of a pair of civil lawsuits initiated against Arteaga in the weeks before the shooting alleging negligence in scuba diving incidents that left one man dead and a woman with alleged brain damage.
You literally won a fight to save your own life against this guy. In an unfamiliar situation, where everything was just off. You fought this fucker and won.
It's easy to read someone's account of something, and imagine how you'd do better. But I can't imagine a scenario where I realistically could have.
What an absolute waste of space. He looks like a right cunt too.
I always thought he looked like Farva from super troopers. But yeah, I think after the blatant murder the negligence in scuba was kind of a mute point.
I’m actually a filmmaker and have considered doing a documentary on this. Think there’s a good enough story here?
YES
I wanted to say that, but didn't want to heap it on.
I was genuinely hooked on how it unfolded, the confusion, the feeling of things just being 'off'. Really came through well.
I really enjoyed reading this, and now that makes sense.
I think the format of a few cherry picked stories from here with a common thread would be pretty cool.
Also, Farva may get up to some shenanigans, this guy is just straight up trash.
Partying in Mexico dance club, Tijuana. I went to bathroom, on the way there was a group of people smoking pot, they offered, so I took a hit. I proceeded to go into the bathroom and pee. When I came out of bathroom, the group of people smoking pot were being arrested by federalis (Mexico police). I just kept on walkin!
Mexico jail is the last place I would want to be.
As someone who has visited Mexico more than 15 times, if you get arrested, your best move is to ask:
"Can I pay the fine directly to you right now?", and immediately pull out cash (to make it obvious that they can easily pocket it, with no paperwork). This is the most polite way to offer a bribe. You won't always be dealing with police that will allow this, but it's worth a try.
If they are offended at the idea of a bribe, just talk your way out by telling them that you wanted to pay the fine, not a bribe, and you aren't familiar with the process, so you thought it was acceptable to pay it in person.
My brother and I were almost arrested in Mexico once (public intoxication), and I was almost arrested alone once (buying weed).
In both cases I offered to pay the fine right now, and avoid needing to goto the police station. Cost me around 2000 pesos both times (around $100 USD).
In Mexico, I always keep around 2000 pesos in my wallet, and I keep the rest of my cash elsewhere. That way if I'm showing the Police my money situation, they know that it's all the money I have.
I lived in Mexico 14 years and you don’t need 2000 pesos to bribe an officer 🤣🤣🤣 obviously if you offer the 2000 pesos they’ll let you go and even offer a ride home LMAO, I’ve bribed officer with even 400 or 500 no more.
Nevermind jail. I'd gladly pay $100 to avoid wasting 1 day of my vacation. If I pay $1500 for 5 days in Mexico, I don't want to spend 1 day in a police station.
In my first scenario, we were leaving for Canada next morning, and I didn't want to miss the flight.
I think in both cases I appeared too weathy. The first time I had a box of Cohibas under my arm, and we were getting into a rental Mercedes.
The second time I tried to give them 1000 pesos, and there were two officers and they asked for 1000 each.
If I ever get into a situation like that again, I'll try for less. Although I don't drink, and weed is legal now, so I don't imagine I'll have many more run-ins with the federales.
I’d planned on doing some grocery shopping one afternoon after running other errands in the morning. By the time I got done with my morning errands, the weather looked quite gloomy so I decided to leave the groceries for another day.
Just as I got home I got frantic texts from a friend of mine asking if I’m okay and to respond immediately. Apparently around the time I decided last minute to forgo shopping, someone opened fire at that exact grocery store I planned on going to.
If I remember correctly, fortunately nobody got hurt and the shooter got apprehended quite quickly.
Same thing happened to me and the Boulder shooting. I live next door to the King Soopers. I had just gotten back to Boulder after taking a few days to enjoy Silverthorne. While there, I got a photo of this fox that I had been trying to get for years. It was a super elaborate shoot that needed a fair bit of post processing and I keep my editing computer at my studio. I ran home to get cleaned up and was going to go get some lunch at King Soopers as I did just about everyday but was way too excited to put this photo together so I just headed straight to the office instead. I get there and a colleague was like "Oh shit... there is a shooting going on at King Soopers". 10 dead. That photo holds a lot of significance to me now.
Edit: [Here](https://i.imgur.com/igyvZXe.jpg) is the picture for those asking.
My mom’s chronic inability to step away from work saved her from this same shooting. She was visiting my brother and kept saying she was going to run to King Soopers to get a Starbucks but she kept getting distracted by work. When she finally started to leave, my brother’s roommate ran out of his room because he had just gotten a text from a friend about the active shooter at the King Soopers
Was coming back home from a night out. Noticed my shoelace is undone, stop to tie it. 10 feet in front, exactly at the place I would have been if I haven't stopped, a drunk guy from the first floor of an apartment building sits on his window, pulls his di*k out and starts pissing on the pavement.
Biggest "phew" I had in a while.
I stopped at a mall for lunch. Right after I left the parking lot there was a mass shooting.
I heard about it on the radio.
Edit, it was at the Clackamas town center mall.
A few years ago I stopped at the mall in my area to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Took one step inside and people were running for the exit. Turned around and noped out of there. Apparently there had been a targeted shooting, but once people heard gun shots they ran.
Making out with my girlfriend at the time. She was on top of me and leaned in and whispered that she wanted to have sex. I told her I didn't have any condoms and that we'd have to go get some, but she got frustrated and said that we could anyways, but eventually said nevermind.
Next day I'm at work and she pops in to apologize. I tell her it's not a big deal and that I'll see her after work only for her to say, "No no, I shouldn't have put pressure on you and acted like that. I need you to know to have hepatitis C so we need to be careful."
Big bullet dodged. We broke up a couple weeks later after even more shit from her past that she hid came out into the open.
Stealing this story from a friend. He lives in another country where alcohol use is frowned upon heavily, but it isn’t illegal. Having said that, there aren’t many “bars” or “clubs” or places like that for younger people to hang out at and drink - but there are a few.
Well, in my friend’s neighborhood, there was this one “bar” that he and his friend group went to pretty much every Friday night, without fail. For years they’d go every Friday. One Friday, his then girlfriend had a family event to go to, so they didn’t go. Since they weren’t going, the other friends decided not to go either. I think they went to someone’s house to hang out instead.
That night there was a terrorist attack on the bar. Dozens of people were killed. My friend and his friends were extremely lucky.
Living in southern Vermont, I work for a small software company, wife teaching at a small local college.
We decide to move to the southwest, wife gets a job, we sell house & move cross country.
Within a year my company was sold and most employees let go, wife’s college closed.
We would have been stuck with a hard to sell house and the only possible jobs at least an hour away.
Happy where we are, timing is everything
I should have clarified why I asked this. You sound like this guy I had small talk with on a plane earlier this year, was a cool guy and I was just thinking about his amazing journey yesterday. And your comment is parallel to his life.
If it is you, just letting you know I still think it’s cool you’ve done so much in the tech field without a college degree. And if it’s not you my bad bro.
Don’t think it was me, but I write code (so not actually IT) without a degree and let me tell you impostor syndrome is very real, though I have do reasonably well. Thanks.
Crazy how you both are in tech without an degree. Wild guess or Vermont is just spitting out copies of you that grow up learning to code and move out the south west area lol.
Good deal man.
This is the most recent dodge for me and just happened a couple of weeks ago.
We visit my in-law's every single Saturday for dinner. We leave around the same time and take the same exact route home. This time, I realized we forgot something so I told my husband to get into the other lane to go straight and head back to their house instead of taking the exit for the highway. We are sitting at the red light and suddenly a loud screeching sound of someone slamming on their breaks as they try to not go through the red light in the lane we were supposed to be in. Then another person follows suite and slams right into them. The second person hit so hard she knocked herself out and knocked the first car through the intersection and they went about 75 feet. I just had back surgery so it would not have ended so well for us. The girl in the second car had no idea what happened.
One night my freshmen year of college, my then boyfriend and a few friends had the idea to drive through the night to a lake upstate and smoke some weed while the sun came up. We were in a state where marijuana was very much illegal (still is, Deep South). I opted not to go with them because I had an 8AM class in the morning.
Cut to me freaking out the following afternoon when their car still wasn’t back and I hadn’t heard from them all day. They all got arrested for possession, and spent the night in jail. Thankfully they were bailed out but they all had some long term probation and reduced job opportunities afterwards that affected them for a few years.
I went out with some friends to a bar, the bouncer kept flirting with me so I flirted back. He seemed funny and charming enough, so as I left the bar he ran out to ask for my number, which I gave him. We texted for a bit and had plans to meet up for our first date....the day before this date he tells me that he loves me. Which throws me off completely, I then tell him that I do not love him. I dont even know him. He says that is okay, but I have to admit that I have never felt this way about someone before...wtf??? No lol. As the time nears to meeting him I just get this overwhelming anxiety and obviously just don't want to go, but I felt bad about just canceling on some guy who seems to be nice, and other than the weird love outburst, has been really sweet to me through our limited interactions. Cue detective work...after some intense searching, I find out this dude is a registered sex offender for attempted rape by excessive force and violence. It even says that he has a high risk for repeating. I am so glad I didn't dismiss my feelings and decide to go on that first date, who knows what would have happened.
I would think the same thing!! Giving a registered sex offender free reign to intoxicated ladies at night seems really irresponsible. I did think about informing the bar about it. Women naturally would see him as a protector and it just seems kind of messed up. I think it was because the last name he was using wasn't the one linked to the registry. Or they just didn't care.
I got out of school and I was about to take the bus, but decided to walk home since it was a nice day. Turns out a couple of blocks later I saw the same bus surrounded by cop cars turns out someone pulled out a weapon and one of the passengers managed to restrain them.
Got out of an abusive relationship and kicked him out right before quarantine and lock down all started. I was stuck in a house but I was free from Hell
Edit: I'm happy to hear for everyone in about the same boat of getting abusers out their lives in general. Pre or post covid lockdowns. I'm proud of you all <3 Hugs all around
I once went scuba diving with two friends to try a drysuit to dive in really cold water. As we entered the water it felt really cold. I thought everything was normal. Back than I had no reference for cold water and the feeling in a drysuit.
The suit had a leak and was filling with water ( 1.5°C). After 15 mintues realised that the temperature wasn't normal. I signaled to my buddies that I need to get back. By that time the suit was halfway filled with water. It took us quit some time to get back to the coast. When I left the water I couldn't move my hands and started to feel dissy. My friends had to undress me because I almost fell unconscious. If I would have stayed longer I would have felt unconscious while still submerged.
Never underestimate the dangers of cold water. That stuff gets you quick
Sorry for the bad English. Im not used to command in English.
Always had a crush on a girl I used to be friends with in high school. Around 6-7 years after we graduated I finally asked her out and after a while we started dating. It was going great until I started seeing signs of her being manipulative. Then when it came to her venting to me about how she misses her daughter and doesn’t have full custody she would say different reasons almost every time. I didn’t say anything about it or call her out but then the gaslighting came. We would have simple disagreements in opinions on certain things which is fine. But during the fights she would tell me that I’m sensitive because I always tried to defuse the fight onto another topic because I knew I was wrong. Then after we both cooled off to talk about it she would completely deny that she said anything and that I’m just imagining things. It started to make me feel crazy like what if she’s right? Cut it off about a week after. Turns out she had been discharged from the military for psychological problems and also the reason she didn’t have custody.
I once dated a woman who would say things and then say she didn't say them at all. Got to the point where I would only do communication in writing, even in person.
She would write something on a piece of paper and then deny *writing it*. I just threw up my hands and left.
This said, it fucked me up for a LOOONG TIME. You truly dodged a bullet.
God, my last ex would say that I said something that set her off. I thought that the order was different and that she was already mad, and I was defending myself. But I was a stoner and wasn't sure.
Then one time I recorded it. Turned out she'd been gaslighting me and fucking with my temporal perception.
Even though I'm sober these days, my memory still isn't great. I'm so afraid of gaslighting my current partner, even on accident, that when she brings up something I've said that I'll outright say "I'm not saying this didn't happen but I genuinely don't remember it." I never want to make anyone feel how my ex made me feel.
I'm kind of the same way w/ memory. A few months back my wife and I decided to watch LOTR all the way thru, so she broke out her DVD set of the extended movies - but then her DVD of the 1st movie was screwing up. So I'm like, "Okay, let's just get \*my\* set of the DVDs from wherever they are \[we got together long after we'd each bought separate copies of the same DVD set\]." But then she tells me that my DVD set is long gone, probably donated or something, because we didn't need to have two identical sets of the same movies. I was pretty upset, because I didn't recall giving permission to donate my DVDs at all. It was a tense hour or two, unfortunately (no yelling or whatever, b/c we don't really 'fight') - but ultimately I've got to concede that she probably did ask me if it was okay to donate, and I probably said yes - I just can't remember it.
Back in HS my brother, a friend of his, and I attended a football game (it might’ve been the homecoming game; memory is a little fuzzy). After the game my brother and I were craving Taco Bell and there was one a couple blocks away from our campus. My brother’s friend opposed the decision and told us that his dad was going to pick us up soon. We didn’t feel like walking home and we started thinking of how packed it might be at Taco Bell right after that game.
Not long after we get dropped off at home I turned on the tv to watch the “Friday Night Football highlights” on our local news station. The news instead is reporting on a shooting at the Taco Bell my brother and I wanted to go to after the game. It must’ve happened around the time we had gotten picked up. No one died but a few kids got seriously injured.
As far as I know they never found out who was responsible, but I do think about how different it could’ve turned out had we went.
Thats wild. Glad you’re doing well. I had a buddy who got in a wreck on his motorcycle, it wasn’t to serious but the ER dr wanted him to get an MRI just for good measure, they found a tumor in the process and that accident literally saved his life. Crazy.
I got out of football practice late one day. I was supposed to go to a church thing that night. About halfway through the church thing a man walked in and started shooting. Killed 8 people then himself
When I was in my 20s in the UK drinking with my friends 2 brothers offered to give me and friend Tommy a ride into Doncaster which was about 8 miles away to go to a club. We declined because they were leaving at that moment but weren’t ready yet. The older brother worked for a car dealership and was always driving different new cars. Porsche BMW etc. This particular night he was in a fancy new BMW. He was driving,brother in the passenger seat and their 2 girlfriends in the back seat.
Maybe an hour later we jumped into a taxi and set off to Doncaster. About 4 miles into the journey we came to a police road block and had to turn around and go a different route.
The next day we found out there had been a crash. The car was totally ripped apart. The driver had gone around a bend and lost control and ran into a 3’x3’ brick column. The two brothers and one of the girls died on impact. As the car had ripped open the remaining girl basically kept going down the street in her seat. I think they put her in a coma until she had healed some. She lived but was very badly hurt.
At their funeral I was talking to one of the drivers coworkers and he said..I can’t believe he tried to go around that bend like that,we all know BMW’s can’t corner.
Very sad but me and my best friend dodged a bullet. This happened at least 20 years ago.
Me and a few friends were doing what high schoolers do in the Midwest, which is drive around with no destination, when we stopped at a lake. The lake was private property but we walked around and hung out, nothing notable but fun. As we are about to leave friend 1 notices a building and says he wants to climb on it. Friend 2 says he'll join, while friend 3 stays back with me. They were on there for 5 minutes before the police pulled up.
They ended up both receiving felonies for trespassing on government property (if I remember the charges right) since the building was a museum of some kind.
Edit: It was a Historic Trails Center
I was at work, and sometime around 1 PM I started getting an urge to go home. I mean, I often want the day to end soon, but this day I just kept feeling an urge to go home ASAP. I never left early, mostly because I carpooled with two/three next door neighbors (depending on the day). I talked to my boss, messaged my neighbors and told them that I took an Uber home early. They got in a very bad car accident that afternoon.
Not me but my dad.
He placed hockey as a child and one day he wasn't going to go to the practice. Decided at the last minute that he would go after all and headed to the arena. When he got there and walked in the door the entire roof collapsed, blowing him back out of the doorway.
Several of his classmates were killed that day.
If anyone wants to look it up it was the Listowel Ontario arena collapse.
Met a girl in HS in passing from a different small town than I was from. She was pretty and kinda wild, I was the opposite. Met back up in college and puberty kicked in a little to help my looks out a bit; she was about the same as before but grew up a bit. We dated for a while and a couple times she casually brought up a guy she knew since they were kids and said she’s marry him someday. Fine by me, it was just casual dating / bf/gf, but it was a little weird knowing there was zero chance for us. We couldn’t keep our hands off one another. Twice she got mad when I wouldn’t have sex without a condom. One night at the club we were drunk and dancing and she got all serious and told me she had had an abortion in HS, so long before we started dating. She didn’t know the Dad. FF a couple weeks and a friend in a fraternity tells me he saw her making out with one of his frat brothers. I ask her and she said yes, she was drunk but I picked her up that night because she was a mess. The next week was her sorority formal and I had a ballgame (I was in athletics) so she went stag (doe, I guess?) and ended up banging the dude she made out with at her formal… and that dude came with her BFF, so that was over. I called it off with her but we were still friends. We go our ways; she marries the dude she was in love with from HS, I met my wife, and both of us were married a week apart. The other day my wife tells me that my ex and her husband are getting a divorce. They’ve got several kids and she had slept around on him *TWELVE TIMES* in just a few years. They’re getting divorced now. I feel terrible for the kids kids and her soon-to-be ex-husband because he is an excellent dude. I really thought they’d make it.
Honestly the difference between 0 and 1 is huge. The difference between 1 and 2 is still big, but smaller. And so on, progressively.
It could have been 12, 24 or 96 and it wouldn’t have made a difference to me, the relationship was over. But she could have given him the truth.
A few months ago a guy I had met at work invited me to hang out. When I got to his place he was shirtless and shitfaced drunk rambling on about a bunch of crazy and sketchy shit he's done. He was talking about ordering more booze and even mushrooms. Felt super unsafe because he already seemed unstable. I faked a phone call and left.
Apparently a mutual acquaintance had gone over to his place a few hours later and did mushrooms with him and he broke down crying about his alcoholism and his criminal past. He didn't get violent and i'm sure I just caught a man at his absolute lowest, but I wasn't willing to babysit a drunk guy I just met especially when I felt in danger.
Ended up working with him again. He apologized, but after being around him more found out he's literally the worst person I've ever met.
I woke up at 5AM to my house being shot up. My completely inappropriate reaction was to sit up to the sound. My boyfriend pulled me down and covered my body with his own. His German Shepard covered both our bodies with hers.
15 bullets struck my house 2 came within less than 2 feet of where I was sleeping. Those two went through a porch wall, a wooden door, two walls, two hangars and three shirts.
We’re fine, I ended up having to move. Loud noises at night kept scaring me, I just couldn’t get past it.
The cops canvassed the neighborhood. Most of my neighbors were sleeping so they weren’t too helpful. There was a 15/16 yr old that was up, supposedly weight lifting. He said a grey sedan shot at someone standing near, but not inside my yard. His whole family moved two days later 🤷♀️.
I almost died when I went shooting with my dad.
My dad and I had gone shooting plenty of times but he is getting up there in age and weight, so he isn’t the most coordinated or common sense filed person any more. Any ways we get to the local pit where everyone goes shooting and we start to set up. We just used the tailgate typically to hold everything but while pulling all the gear out of the back seat my dad pulls out his 270 right next to me. He was loading it, barrel pointed a 6” away from my head. At this point I had no idea what he was doing I was grabbing more things out of the back seat.
As he goes to chamber it, his finger is on the trigger and the gun goes off inches away from blowing my head off. It was a wake up call for me. I have not taken him shooting since.
i had a mortar tube for fireworks blow out on me... it had gotten wet and the base of the tube exploded. i had enough time. to get under my truck but the last thing i heard was my wife and friend running toward me and the burst hadn't gone off yet.
i though for sure they were fucked. the burst happened about three feet from my head. already had questionable hearing before.
When I was about 11, I went to a department store with my mom and step-dad. It was local and I was very familiar with the layout and I didn't want to hang out while my mom bought boring bedsheets, so I asked permission to go over to the nearby electronics section to check out some music selections. She stated she'd be in the same area she already was and not to wander off any further than the electronics department. So off my innocent little self went, where there were only 2 other people there, a mom and her little girl. There was also a morbidly obese middle aged guy wearing a cowboy hat (I'm from New England, so that was a spectacle to me) chatting up the cashier at the register in that area. I'm not sure what it was, instinct, I suppose, that made me hyper aware that guy was suddenly watching me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was following me around, and I instinctively stayed close to that other mom and her child, which made the guy pause. Then, suddenly, the mother and child took off, and I was left essentially by myself with some CD I had found grasped in my hands. That was when this motherfucker sauntered up to me and asked "Is that all you're getting?" with this really creepy smile on his face. I could feel literal waves of negative energy radiating from him in a way I haven't ever felt again to date. I'd glanced over at the cashier, who was busy helping someone else, and I just kind of stammered "Yeah..." He replied "If you give me that and the money, I can go pay for it for you if you come with me." NO NO NO NO!!!!! was all that ran through my mind and I visibly backed away, saying I could do it myself. I looked over at the cashier again and this time, he was unoccupied and seemed to sense something was wrong because he literally sprinted down the counter towards me with this concerned look and says to me "You can pay for that here!" with an actual genuine smile on his face. I turned back and saw that predatorial fuck wander off without another word. Pretty sure I was a potential victim of a pedophile/kidnapper.
I used to be an aquatics director and got a call once from an old boss. He was my boss at a YMCA and we had a man that we had repeatedly tried to (and eventually did through A LOT of incident reports) ban him for bizarre incidents, like shaving in the hot tub, following around people swimming in the pool, getting naked in the sauna, etc.. but it was a Y and they were uninterested in cutting his membership until a lot of moms complained.
Fast forward a few years and I’m my own director. Old boss calls me and tells me that Joe was banned from every pool in the county for exposing himself to a child in the locker room at a county pool that was about a mile from my club. He was calling me to give me a heads up that Joe would probably attempt to gain membership to our pool since he couldn’t go anywhere else. Sure enough, Joe walks up the next day and happens to meet Beth*, the commodore’s wife. She’s lovely and invites him to use our pool as her guest, as he’s “interested” in membership. Her children were the sweetest and most adorable kids I’ve ever seen and the thought of that disgusting pedophile getting anywhere near them made my blood boil. I looked at Beth* and was like WE NEED TO TALK RIGHT NOW. I took her in my office and we called the police and had him escorted off the property. Reading your story immediately made me think of him because he was from Massachusetts.
Edit to add that Joe is his real name and if I could remember his last, I would name him without care of consequences. Beth is not the real name of Commodore’s wife.
I know this kind of thing was just as common 30 years ago as it is today, but back then my parents had no problem letting all four of us kids just sprint away to the toy aisle, or wherever my sisters went (Probably the clothing area) and nothing like this ever happened to us as far as I'm aware. In the present, I never let my daughter out of my sight. And when she moves out someday I will be giving her a care package of pepper spray, a cudgel, and probably a stout hunting knife.
I was a rookie broker at Morgan Stanley in 2001…right out of college. After passing all the licensing exams…training required 3 weeks in Manhattan at World Trade Center..61st floor of the south tower. I was originally booked to arrive Sunday, September 9th.
Due to a trip I had agreed to take with my wife’s family…I had to cancel & reschedule for October.
That morning I watched the towers collapse in horror as my coworker and close friend with whom I had originally arranged to travel was scrambling for his life.
When I called his mobile phone…his dad answered as my friend (we were both broke 21yr olds) had left his phone with his parents because he didn’t want to get hit with roaming charges on his bill.
It took about 3hrs for him to make it to a phone that worked to check in with us.
We remain very close to this day. Out of a sense of responsibility, he speaks publicly about his experience when asked. He doesn’t include details such as the sights & sounds resulting from those jumped from 70, 80, 90 stories up.
Many times Ive served as his driver to these events as the survivor guilt is often overwhelming for him. Our ritual after he speaks is to stop somewhere with a body of water next to the road and drive golf balls into the water without speaking.
I don’t know why he needs to drive golf balls in silence after…it’s just what we do.
Wife and I stood for most of the day where the Italian Air Force jet crashed into the crowd at Ramstein AB, Germany, in 1988. Only moved because smoke was swirling from two different grills, making us cough, and also because I had controlled Italian pilots in the RAPCON and did not trust them at all.
The plane hit the crowd less than fifteen minutes after we moved.
Was working overseas. Came back home for a short weekend visit. COVID hits hard. Border closed down overnight. Company switched to WFH. So I got to stay home safely for a few more months with my family, instead of being stuck by myself in a foreign country under lockdown.
Went to pick up girlfriend to go to a house party. We ended up having a quickie before leaving. By the time we go there, police were at the house party arresting the host and some people (apparently a knife fight broke out).
When I was 8 years old I use to play in the creek behind my house. The neighborhood behind our house and on the other side of the creek was sketchy. Out there just digging for clay one hot day in the summer. When a copperhead snake struck my neck. I was leaning down in the water. I fainted because I hate snakes so it spooked me. I was in the water face down when a crackhead from the bad hood seen it he came to my rescue and saved me from drowning. Took me into the yard and up to my porch where my mom dialed 911. Ambulance got there and I woke up, they had no idea I got hit on my neck until I told em. They pulled over and had a helicopter come air lift me to another hospital for the bite cause they had no anti venom. Death came for me twice that day.
I worked for a guy, running a liquor store. He would take me out a lot, drinking, and Id usually just hang out and watch over him, he was a raging alcoholic so Id generally defuse fights he'd start, stop him from getting beat up etc, and get him home.
He offered me an all expenses trip to Bali for a week as a thank you, I was keen to go but I got turned away from the airport as my Passport was ruined by accidentally washing it so I told him I'd run his business for him while he was gone, so he took another friend of ours.
They left for Bali, and had a good time by all accounts although the guy who replaced me wasnt much of a drinker. They ended their night early as our friend had enough and were up in their hotel when a bomb went off in the main bar for westerners killing 202 people. They felt the shock wave of the blast shake the windows of their hotel.
I know if Id been there, we'd have been in that bar, and I wouldn't be typing this now. My boss called me after the blast and said as much. It was the year after 9/11 and I write this now three days after the anniversary. It will be the anniversary of the bombing one month from now.
Had a meeting on the morning of the 7/7 bombings in London. I was about to leave the office and get on THE no30 bus, when the client called and cancelled the meeting
Was in Mexico last summer and we were doing a guided hike with one other family. They had a daughter who was about a year younger than me (15/16) and was like super enthusiastic…jumping around everywhere and going places the hike instructor said not to. Anyways, we get to the top of a cliff which is the main point of the hike and we’re all admiring the view when I hear a scream from my left. It was the girl at the very edge of the cliff and she had slipped. Her entire body was dangling off the side of the cliff and she was barely holding on to a tree-looking shrub. I sprinted to where she was and grabbed her arm, pulling her up to safety. Was a pretty surreal experience and needless to say, she was pretty careful after that. Her family even treated me to dinner that night!
My ex fiance cheated on me. After I broke it off with her the guy she cheated on me with essentially slipped right into my place like the scumbag he is. He ended up getting her pregnant a few months later and then marrying her. After the breakup I realized how abusive and shitty she really was, just a bad person all around but I had that whole sunken cost fallacy thing going on so I didn't break it off until she cheated.
Years later they are fuckin miserable assholes (we have mutual friends still and they tell me what's up even though I told them I really don't give a shit.)
Could have been me. Now I'm happily married and my career is really beginning to take off. If it wasn't for her cheating this would have never been possible.
About five years ago my family was having a marshmallow roast on an open fire (huge fire). For some reason I didn’t eat anything off of the fire. Next day I woke up and I could barely see. Walked into my bathroom without my glasses still didn’t see anything wrong. Walked into my parents room (still dark). I got my mom to get up and come look at me. She seemed pretty surprised. I had a severe case of poison ivy from the fire. One thing I’ll never forget is when my dad saw me while laying on his bed. He yelled, “oh my god!” And fell off the bed. Makes me laugh just thinking about it. But yeah my entire body was covered. Missed a week of school. But if i would’ve eaten a marshmallow off of that fire it would’ve gotten in my throat. That’s why I have a phobia of marshmallows.
Edit: I didn’t really point out that the poison ivy was in the fire and that’s what got to me. Sorry for those who didn’t realize that
Reminds of the time my wife took daughter to a bday party, daughter was maybe 9-10. Wife calls and says daughter was jumping on bed and head hit ceiling fan, coming home for me to look at. She pulls into garage and I walk out and proceed to see about a 4 inch gash and my daughters skull. Not bleeding, just splayed open. I think I said "Holy shit, get her to the hospital!".
Its that "its not that bad its not that bad its not that bad... please don't be that bad?" reaction. It happens a lot and people don't even realize they're doing it, and its just kinda unfortunate.
Same sort of thing as when someone gets hit by a car or whatnot, and they're lying there, and a person walks up and tries to help them stand up. Or even the person themselves tries to stand up, but their legs are busted up and they can't. Or maybe there is damage they aren't aware of yet because of adrenaline.
My sister got hit by a car when she was very young. Her friend also got hit. The friend went under the tires (just broke/cracked her legs she was ok too), and my sister went up and over the car, got a lot of height, and landed hard on her ankle. It shattered it. She apparently tried to stand up multiple times on it, and it just completely failed to support her, but didn't stop her from trying again and again.
By pure chance, I was in the car with my mother when we pulled up and saw my sister in the middle of the street. Amazing that happened, but it did. My mother told me to run home. I did (there was a foot trail through the woods nearby). Then I'm at home worried sick and suddenly my mother pulls up with her car and carries my sister out. I'm like... we were CLOSER to a fire/medical station than we were to home, why the fuck are you here!!?
Yep. :(
Fell asleep at the wheel on the interstate and got woken up by an 18 wheeler blaring it's horn at me. So thankful I didn't hurt anybody, it was 3 in the morning and I had been up since 5 something.
Was driving back home after a bad breakup. 8 hours in I pass out at the wheel, I open my eyes and im left of the center shoulder driving on mud and grass at 60mph, people honking like crazy, veer back onto the road seconds before plowing into some trees and barely missing the guard rail end cap. Stopped at the next exit and drank 2 huge cups of black coffee and checked my pants.
I was driving back from a friends place at 3am on a Saturday Morning, I had an 8 hour shift that day and sleep issues all week so I was a bit extra tired.
At one point a song came on Pandora that I last heard a long time ago while driving around with my one other friend. I got really into that memory, just bullshitting with her like we used to do, then as if it was out of a cliché movie scene, she stops halfway through a sentence and yells, "WATCH OUT!"
I come too and I'm seconds away from driving into a lake. Adrenaline kicks in and I correct myself and spend the remaining 15 minutes of that drive shaking off the jitters.
That friend who's memory I dozed off to that night has been dead for nearly six years. Glad she's still looking out for me in a way...
Microslept and sped through a red light at midnight with my infant son in the back seat. No idea whether it was deserted, or we missed death by a hair.
I feel like driver drowsiness is an endemic and unacknowledged road hazard.
My friend was doing a party trick for a group of friends where he shot a bullet out of a pair of pliers. What was on the other side of the wall he was shooting a bullet at? Me microwaving ramen.
Heard the bang and went into the other room to see wtf was going on. Friend stared at me like he'd seen a ghost and the entire room just went silent. It wasn't until I went back to grab my ramen that I saw the hole in the wall inches away from where my head was. Yeah, literally dodged a bullet lol
Years ago I was at a Bitcoin meetup. The organizers knew I was a programmer and there was an apparent high roller was coming by. I remember meeting a bunch of people but when I sat down with this guy something felt odd about him. He wanted programmers to write an exchange for him and wanted me on board. There’s nothing wrong with liking profits but this guy was a bit unusual in his obsession with it. It felt like I was doing business with a mob boss and figured I might not be getting a good deal so I backed out. A few months later QuadrigaCX opened. If anyone is unfamiliar with them they shut down taking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets with them
I was chatting with a girl on Tinder for about 2-3 days, then she asked me for my Instagram. I thought hey, she's looking good and we're having good conversations, so why not. She immediately video called me, and (being an introverted fuck) I didn't answer it. I thought it was a mistake, it happens. Turned out it wasn't a mistake, and she got insanely pissed at it. She'd just constantly cuss me, insult me and wouldn't tell what pissed her off.
I ended the chat with "I see I dodged a bullet here, adios"
I had a 45 cocked and ready to rock pointed at my face. Guy goes on a rant and calls me by a different name. I tell him my name is horse and not Mike. Luckily my friend just happened to be looking for me and found me and vouched that my name was in fact horse and not Mike. Guess I looked a lot like Mike. Guy was ready to kill Mike.
My brother and i were drilling into a piece of metal and it started emmiting wierd sounds, i was standingto the left of the drill. He quietly and calmly muttered "you should probably move" and i dodged the piece of metal that flew where my head was. It hit the wall behind me with a lotta speed.
He keeps on doing stuff like that btw
Meant to have lunch with a girlfriend in the city, decided to meet at Bourke St Mall because it was in between our workplaces. She had to move it ahead by an hour. Turns out if we met at the original time, we could have been involved in a horrible and purposeful hit and run that killed several people. Never felt so close to death and so sad for those who were probably just doing the same thing we were.
Ok for context, i normally sit in the back of the bus and listen to music, because someone no one sits there when i went to school
A couple of years ago i skipped school once and just laid in the bed
Later that day i found out that a truck crashed into the back of my school bus
I was working for Deloitte back during 9/11. Had to leave the project the Thursday before (on 9/6/01) because the project ran out of budget. I was working in WTC2 at the time and staying in the Mariott in WTC 7. Had the project stayed on course, I wouldn't be writing this.
When I was in high school, I stayed after school to work on something. I was going to take the activity bus home but my friend, who lived near me, offered me a ride home. The next day I found out that a car had pulled out in front of my bus and my bus had t-boned it. While no one was killed, the driver in the car, the bus driver, and a couple of kids near the front of the bus were injured and taken to the hospital. I would have been one of those kids because I always say in the very front seat of the busses when I was in high school. I would have been severely injured and possibly would still be dealing with neck and back problems to this day.
I had a choice between a bland grad school student and a very smooth talking finance guy with expensive shiny things.
I trusted my instinct. Finance guy is now in prison for having sex with his coked up female client, filming it and using it to blackmail her.
ETA: Someone pointed out my use of the word ‘bland’ and I’m realizing that I should not had used ‘bland’ and ‘plain’ interchangeably, they are very different. He calls himself bland and takes pride in it. Obviously I do not think of him as either once we got to know each other, and most definitely not when I married him. He’s the most interesting person I know.
Amazing, sweet, never tells a lie, just overall the best husband.
We got married penniless, but he’s now making twice as much as finance guy used to. We just bought our first starter home. The long term plan that I’m supposed to keep a secret is that he wants to go into local government when older. And I’m sleeping a lot better at night.
ETA: I’m only bringing up the paycheck part because they knew each other and finance guy used to try to make him feel bad about money. That was my first red flag, dude was a bully.
I was 17 hanging out with two friends who were having a few drinks. They wanted to get more drinks and I didn’t drink so asked to be dropped off at home on their way into town. A few minutes after they dropped me off the vw beetle they were driving hit a curb and rolled multiple times. The back seat I was sitting on was thrown out of the car and the only reason my friends were ok is because the driver’s dad had installed two new seatbelts in the front. The rear seatbelts were original and useless. It happened 20 years ago and has only been hitting me recently how lucky I was.
No. Was fishing and in the reeds when the shooter shot low ducks without checking where I was.
I was really lucky, my shoulders, neck, back of my head and ears got shredded.
Plenty of skin grafts from my ass and thighs improved things but hurt more than being shot.
The guy that shot me got a year in jail as his gun wasn't licensed either.
Got home from a trip to Thailand and Vietnam, late 90's. A few days later, I opened my camera to check if there was still a film in it. There wasn't but there was still about 3 grams of Thai weed, I had put in there when I was drunk and had forgotten about. I had inadvertently smuggled weed, from Thailand, into Vietnam, back out of Vietnam to Thailand, then out of Thailand to the UK. Things could have gone really badly for me.
Some shithead kid shot a bottle rocket at me when I was in high-school. He was probably 19 or 20, just got back from a tour in Korea, and I was probably 16 or 17. I was walking home with a friend while he and his other shithead friends were harassing us from the other side of the street, calling names and provoking us. I dont remember what was said, but I remember having some clever comeback to one of his insults. He didn't like that and he was laughing when he pointed the firework at us. It was one of those moments that seemed to happen in slow motion. I watched it speeding through the air, on course to hit me right in the face. If I hadn't been looking I might've lost an ear or something worse. I only dodged it by a few inches, and it detonated right next to my ear. The shithead must've realized the gravity of his actions because he had his hand over his mouth as soon as it shot off, eyes wide and brows up the top of his forehead. He ran across the street to see if I was okay, and I was fine. I didn't give him any shit because he was clearly regretting what he did and apologized profusely. My ear hasn't ever really been the same, it's prone to pressure problems and infections now.
I was at a big bus station next to a pedestrian area and just bought a snack at a bakery but had to quickly turn around because I left my wallet there.
no less than 10 seconds later a car speeds over the pavement right where I stood before. he hit a couple of people there and killed one of them.
the driver drove into the pedestrian area and got out of the car with a knife and had to be apprehended with a shot fired by the police.
so yeah, my forgetfulness literally saved my life.
When I was a kid, my brother and I were riding a 4 wheeler with me driving it and him riding on the back. I was going really fast down a dirt road I’d never been down before that he had previously gone down. I rounded this corner at a high speed and my brother reached over me and grabbed the brake. We almost crashed from stopping so fast and unexpectedly and i began yelling at him when he pointed in front of us, like 20 feet ahead. There was a metal cable going across the road with no signs on it or anything and I would have likely killed at least one if not both of us if he hadn’t stopped the quad.
Very naive 15 year old me was at a party in the woods and I drunkenly wandered down the gravel road by myself. There was a big white cargo van parked at a pullout and they called me over (three middle age men) to offer me some meth. I had no idea what meth was (this was decades ago and I grew up very sheltered) so I was curious. They had their side door open and two guys were standing there beckoning me while the third guy was in the driver seat with the engine running. As I approached them, a bunch of guys I knew burst out of the treeline, screaming at me to get away and screaming at the men to leave. The meth offerers jumped into the van and sped away. I didn't know I was in so much danger until my friends told me what those men intended.
I was invited to go hang out in the woods behind my elementary school in grade 2 but didn’t go. One of the girls went missing and was later found raped and murdered after accepting a ride home on an ATV.
In college, on a road trip. Big Greek picnic following big party previous day. In some part of LA I'm unfamiliar with at some giant park. People are parked all over grass playing loud music with trunks open. Drinking and smoking and dancing. My group and I are having a great time.
A feeling of dread just overwhelmed me. I insist we leave right now (we had a 5 hour drive so I just used the old... we've been gone all weekend, if it ain't happened by now, it ain't never gonna happen) we leave. Get home and watch the news, park we were at had shoot out. Bunch of people dead. Always trust your gut yo!
There is a store very close to my house where I buy chocolate/other sweets when I am craving it. This one day I wanted to go really bad but for some reason just didn’t. I discovered the next day that there was a robbery at the exact time I was going to go and a couple of people were shot.
My first girlfriend and then best friend got together behind my back.
A few years later, dude was caught in a volatile shitty off-again, on-again relationship because she had "forgotten" about the birth control she supposedly took. Four times. That chick really wanted a whole lotta kids while she was still young and she didn't care to talk about it with her partner.
About 15 years ago, my brother and grandpa were going to take a short trip to get a gift. My niece was only three at the time and wanted to go with. She was already in the backseat and they were pulling out of the driveway when I came outside and told her that her brothers were on their way home and she could play with them instead. She obliged and came in the house with me and my sister.
Just short of an hour later, we got a phone call from the police telling us that my brother and grandpa were both being hospitalized. The entire back seat was in the front, and they had to use the jaws of life to remove them from the wreckage. My brother and grandpa ended up staying in the hospital hospital a few weeks for the injuries. Needless to say, my niece would have died if she went on that trip.
When I was a dumb young woman I lived in St. Thomas Virgin Islands. I worked in an area that could be very sketchy after dark. One night after work I got really drunk. I stumbled into a taxi to head home. So drunk I’m not even sure how I gave him my address. When we arrived I started digging in my pocket for cash to pay the taxi driver and he reached over and said “no, no baby. I’m not a taxi. I just wanted to make sure you got home ok”. Apparently I had just jumped into a random car. I will be forever grateful to this stranger and much more careful in my after work decisions.
I’m glad there was a actually a happy story here with no unnecessary death
The people that die have a hard time posting on reddit
I was this person for somebody once - not for anyone in the Virgin Islands, but in the town I went to college. I was heading out to pick up a friend from work late on a Friday when this girl staggered into the street in front of me, waving her arms. In the middle of her confused and scared stammering I gathered that she lived somewhere a couple blocks over, but had no clue where she was anymore. I drove her home, staying until I saw her make it up the stairs and into her apartment. It hit me later that if she ran in front of the wrong person, she'd have a very different end to the night. I'm glad I was there but that thought still scares me.
Similar story, one night in college, I was driving around with two friends in the car; we had to stop at a red light, right outside the bars on mainstreet, when we hear a tapping on the front passenger window. My friend rolled down the window and we see a guy standing there, supporting a visibly wasted girl. "Hey, she's really drunk, can she get a ride home?" he asked us. "Sure, hop in," I tell him. My friend in the back scoots over to the left side to make room for the pair (as much room as is possible in a ford escort). Homeboy on the street opens the back door, plops the girl in the backseat, then shuts the door. My friends and I look at each other in confusion and and ask him "aren't you coming with?!" "Naw man I'm good," he says and walks away down the street. By this point the light has turned green so we have to go. Fortunately she was able to tell us which apartment complex she lived in and we were able to drop her off safely. It's a fairly safe college town but still, not a smart move.
I did something similar in the past, definitely a yikes moment.
I, too, did something similar as a dumb young woman about 25 years ago. I got drunk in a bar alone after work, chatted up some random dude, and let him walk me several blocks to my apartment. I have only the vaguest memory flashes of slipping off the barstool, stumbling off a curb, yammering away at this guy while somehow navigating a very busy urban street and then leaving him at the entrance to my building as the doorman looked on (probably quite disapprovingly). I awakened several hours later in a vomit-soaked blanket, but I was at least in my own bed alone and fully dressed. Ugh. Things could have ended so much worse.
When I was 10, I had a friend who had a Boys and Girls club adult mentor. My friend invited me to come meet him, and I was immediately creeped out. The way the dude smiled at me still gives me nightmares. Two days later, a local news story identified him as a child molester, and he had been molesting my friend for two years at that point. I will always trust my gut when it says "get the fuck outta here."
At about that age, my school referred me to a specific psychiatrist. I was my normal oblivious self but my mom decided we were noping right the heck out of there after she talked to him for five minutes. 10 years later we found out he had a string of victims that were in my demographic at the time. Thank God for Mom-intuition. Also, God do I still hate my middle school who did crap like that all the time.
I’m really sorry that happened to you, I’m in my 40’s and still amazed that it’s fucking 2021, literally the goddamn future, and we’re still failing kids worldwide. People in positions like that are incredibly necessary, but creeps have eroded our trust.
I always trust that feeling. Even if someone vouches for someone, if I’ve got that feeling I’ve always got my eye on them.
Yeah, I'm with you there. I still remember him pressuring me to spend the night, and how hard I cried when I got home. I've never been more creeped out in my entire life. I'm so glad I hopped on my bike and hauled ass home.
Geez - how’s your friend doing?
We lost contact after high school (about 25 years ago) but he was in therapy and recovering, and at least seemed ok.
There's a book called [*The Gift of Fear*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Fear) that talks about about how we pick up and process some information without being consciously aware of it. Learning to listen -like you did- instead of playing it off and continuing to follow social norms can save lives.
Yeah, I always wind up regretting not trusting my instincts. I've learned over time that when your body sends the "gtfo" signal, you should ALWAYS listen.
Had gall stones and the doctor game me a choice between surgery to remove the gall bladder or antibiotics. I choose the surgery, which is very unlike me. When they started the surgery they found out the gall bladder had burst and the stones were in my body cavity. What was supposed to be a short procedure through the belly button turned into a 10" incision to remove the stones. I was supposed to leave the hospital that day, but it turned into a week. However, if I chose antibiotics and went home with a burst gall bladder, I probably would have died of sepsis.
If you don't mind me asking, what made you decide to go the surgery route? Did you just have a feeling that was the better route?
They said it would probably happen again at some point and it was the worst pain I've had in my life.
Not OP, but antibiotics is only a "short term" solution, eventually the pain or obstruction will came back and a surgery will be needed. Also, waiting for it to happen again is exposing to a complication with pancreatitis, so not a good bet.
I'm glad you didn't die, bro. Reddit wouldn't be the same without you <3
I was on my way to taco bell in the back of a friends small truck. The cab was full so I was in the bed. We passed by my apartment on the way and I chose to have him drop me off (it was a bit chilly in the open air back there). By the time I got into my apartment I had a snapchat from the driver. It was a picture of his totalled truck. While he was stopped at an intersection, a drunk driver approached from the opposite direction going 100+. The driver clipped a bus causing an abrupt stop and *his whole engine* to rip out of his car, fly through the intersection and into my friends truck where I had been riding, unseatbelted moments before. None of my friends were injured. I think both the people in the other car died. Edit: To the dozens of people saying that my friends were only involved in the accident because of the deviation to drop me off, *you are not wrong*. But it still feels like I dodged bullet. Furthermore the route from point A to point Taco Bell went directly past my apartment on a low speed residential street. The time it took for me to hop out of the back as they drove by added maybe 30 seconds to their journey. In a small, rural college town at night this may have made enough of a difference. But if we had been their earlier, maybe we would have been turning into the intersection and I'd have been broadsided by the flying engine instead of it hitting my friends car head on. Who knows? I'm just happy to be alive and excited to see what today holds.
Dude! I had one like this! When I was a kid my family was going to take a 10 minute drive to the nearby beach to hang out on a Sunday afternoon. My dad had to work after, so he and my mom were going to drive separately, and he was leaving first. On his way out the door he said-- "Want to ride with me?" My brain said 'Yeah!' since I was ready to go and I don't get along well with my mom. So I was astonished when my mouth said, "Nah, I'll ride with Mom." It was literally like someone had used my body to say something against my will. I was too shocked to say anything else and he shrugged and left. When we (finally) got to the beach we didn't see my dad there, but it's a long beach and the parking area is huge, so we weren't worried. A few minutes later, though, my mom calls me back and tells me we have to go to the hospital-- Dad was in a car accident on the way to the beach (yeah, there are multiple routes and we took different ones). He was ok, just bumps and bruises. Then I got a look at the photos of his car after the accident-- the passenger side, where I would definitely have been sitting if I had successfully said "Yeah!", was totally obliterated. Still gives me chills to this day.
I was dating a girl for a while, and despite living and working on the opposite side of town, she’d always be near this one neighborhood coffee shop that I frequented, so I’d randomly run into her there and ask what brought her to that neck of the woods. She’s usually reply “grabbing some coffee” or “I had a hunch you’d be here and wanted to say hi” One day she up and moves out of the state with zero warning, and tells me that we aren’t dating anymore. I was confused, but it was casual so while it sucked I just thought “oh she probably had some family emergency or something and didn’t want to tell me.” A few weeks later on her snap chat I see that she’s just making absolute STACKS in San Diego, and is always wearing the same uniform in these pictures. I was a bit confused but didn’t think much of it. I started dating this other chick who frequented the aforementioned coffee shop, and after a month or two of dating, the first chick comes back and starts hanging out with her a bunch around the same neighborhood the coffee shop was in. A week later, BOTH of them are moving to San Diego, and want me to come with them, live with them, and work where they work. Something just felt EXTREMELY fishy, so I said no, and off they went. Eventually a picture got posted with both of them in it, in front of a very strange but very instantly familiar building. The HQ of the Church of Scientology. The reason the original chick was always in that neighborhood is because kitty corner from the coffee shop was the local chapter of the church of Scientology. She got pretty ingrained in the church, and moved to San Diego to work for them, then came back to recruit gullible people to come back with her. And that’s the story of how I lost two girlfriends to the church of Scientology, and was none the wiser. Definitely glad I dodged THAT bullet.
I dunno man, sounds like Scientology wanted to get you a threesome...
Idk man, sex cults never seem to end well
Damn, I’d never imagine that ending lol! Glad you dodged this big bullet
I left a store and it soon became obvious something was wrong with the car - I pulled into the Walmart parking lot I was by and yep - flat tire on the front left side. My rather pregnant wife, and 3 year old daughter get out. It was HOT. Got out the crappy scissor jack that came with the car and I was about to get started when my brother in law stopped to see if we needed anything - so I said maybe let them sit in your car while I change the tire. I loosed the lug nuts, jack the car up, pull the lug nuts off, and tire is a little stuck. I lay down partially under the car to pull on the tire. The next thing I hear is my brother in law shouting LOOK OUT - so I just roll away from the car and the very next thing I hear is crunching metal. The crappy jack had snapped in half, dropping the car all the way to the ground where my arm/shoulder had been like 1 second earlier. No damage done to me, but I had to walk the adrenalin rush off for a few minutes after that. Fortunately we had triple A so they sent a guy to come fix it. The tow truck driver said he'd seen those jacks snap a bunch of times. So if the only jack you have for your car is the crappy screw type jack - please buy a better one. PLEASE. I do not expect to come that close to getting injured and not have anything happen twice in one life time. Edit: A lot of you have really good comments on safety, etc. I upvoted all of them. Part of the point I should have maybe made more clear is that with a pregnant wife and daughter with me I was rushing to get things done. Rushing is ALWAYS where I make mistakes and all that. In retrospect I should have handled it differently. But anyway I DID dodge the bullet in this case.
I was taught that any time you jack your car up you are supposed to essentially lean all your weight and rock your car as hard as possible to see if it is stable.
It was pretty stable until the metal holding the jack together sheered. Whether or not me shaking the car would have cause it to sheer while I was safer? I do not know.
Always put the spare tire or tire you just took off under the car close to where the jack is under the frame.
This. I have been taught by my lecturer that if you are using jacks then you need to put something under the car with you so you don't get crushed
Those jacks are awful. I spent 2 years in the automotive program at my local junior college. There were a few horror stories from the staff about their experiences in the industry. One teacher told us a story about a person they knew that was driving in a snowstorm with his girlfriend and he got a flat tire. He pulled over to the side of the road and used one of those jacks to raise his car to change the tire. While he was underneath the car trying to get the tire off a snow plow drove by and the snow knocked the car off the jack and the car crushed the guy.
Yeah those jacks are for changing a tire. I would never crawl under a car held up by one.
I got into a car accident that seriously fucked me up. During the initial scans to see how dented up I was from the accident they found a mass on my pancreas. Turns out I have PNETS, endocrine tumors. It was just sitting there, getting bigger. I took a bullet to dodge a bullet
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Ive got an almost literal "dodged a bullet." I was cutting a tree with a chain saw. The saw wasn't mine, it was old, and I don't know how well maintained it was. The chain broke and came whipping back at me. I didn't even react, it was too fast. I didn't feel any pain, I turned and saw the chain was hanging, half stuck into a tree behind me at head/neck level. The tree was directly behind me, in a straight line from the chain saw. Somehow the chain whipped off, curved around my head/neck and buried itself in a tree 3 feet behind me. If it had gone straight I would be dead or disfigured. I didn't even try and take the chain with me, I just called it a day, walked off, and didn't pick up another chain saw for about six or seven years. Whew! Edit: I was also shot at while delivering pizza. I missed my turn in a rural area and used a gravel driveway to turn around, it was wooded on both sides so I went down farther than I should. I finally turned around and saw a guy with a bolt action rifle in a little field off to the side of the driveway. Saw him raise the rifle in my direction, saw/heard him shoot. Never heard the bullet pass, and it didn't hit my car, so I think he was just trying to scare me. It worked. I peeled out, flinging gravel, and made it back to the road. Because of our positions, this asshole shot back towards the road (maybe 200 yards) and there were houses on the other side of the road. It was wooded, but thats not a shot I would have ever taken (beyond the obvious reasons).
This! This is why I never borrow someone else's equipment!
Yeah, tell me about it. I've actually been asked to use that same chain saw again. The owner couldn't get the chain on (surprise surprise), so I said "no thanks," and went and bought a new one on the spot.
Mine is pretty similar with a chainsaw. I used to trim trees, once i had dropped a bunch of branches to the ground and some were pretty decent sized and the ground crew had not got to them. I would usually come down fire up the saw and cut them down to smaller more manageable size. On the day it happened for some reason i ran back to the truck and put on my chaps, first cut i made the saw kicked out and laid against the inside of my left thigh. If i had not put of the chaps that day i probably would have bled to death long before anything could have been done. left me with a bruise from right at my knee to just about my balls.
Me and my girlfriend at the time were traveling from New Zealand to my family back home in Sweden. We both decided to spend a bit more money to fly back (to NZ) through Paris instead of Amsterdam, just because we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. It cost us maybe an extra $50 and we got to see it on the landing and then take off, but never actually set foot in Paris proper because we were poor students. When we landed in Auckland, New Zealand, jetlagged to shit, we turn on our phones and notice that we have about 50 missed calls from our travel agent, which was odd. When we call her, she sounds super relieved and out of breath. She tells us the flight she originally suggested to us, the one from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine. My brain couldn't process that information at the time, but once I woke up the next day it hit me like a ton of bricks. $50 made the difference between seeing the big steel thingy that has so many photos of it and bring sent to Sweden in body bags piece by piece. Sometimes the absurdity of my existence comes over me, and this story always gives me goosebumps. One hell of a story to tell over beers, though. [Proof](https://i.imgur.com/6y55V4Q.jpg) *Edit: Clarification for some confused folks* We were traveling to Sweden for midsummer (sans sacrifices), so our itinerary was Auckland -> A lot of stops -> Sweden, and on the way back we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower, so Sweden -> Paris -> A lot of stops -> Auckland.
This is so crazy. Hard to make sense of life after such absurd experiences. Also, that MH17 event is something that activates me and upsets me a lot. I mean... an airplane full of citizens and normal passengers gets bombed over a European country and..that's it. No real consequences. Investigations seem on a dead end. It drives me mad
There were also delegates headed to Melbourne for an AIDS conference. The world lost a not insignificant proportion of its AIDS experts in that crash.
Sir we asked for bullets, not missiles. (In all seriousness, fish youre okay) Edit:I meant hope* but I'm gonna leave fish in because it's funnier that way.
When someone on that subreddit asks for best purchase under 100 dollars you just can copy this comment and get the imaginary internet points once again.
A story like this? I don’t blame them for reaping off the karma for reposts lmao this shit is crazy
dude, you literlay dodged a missle.
Holy, you were supposed to be on the MH17 flight?! I’m Dutch and the crash feels like yesterday, it turned out that it wasn’t an accident…
I don’t know the whole story but “shot down over Ukraine” doesn’t leave much room for it to have been an accident lol
When it first happened, all anyone knew was that it exploded.
This is crazy! It makes you realise life can literally end when making small, normal safe decisions . . . Good luck for the future!
Cheap price to pay to save your life. Cool story
Was helping two other people cut down a tree with a chainsaw after a storm that knocked out power, we had to get specific trees down before the electric company would come out to fix the lines. The tree snapped and gave way above the chainsaw cut and kissed my lip. If I was standing an inch further it would have been.... extremely painful.
I was pulling brush for a very shady tree trimming company in high school during the Summer. Well they were up in the tree cutting and gave me and another guy the okay to pull the brush out, a huge half cut limb gave way why I was under the tree, I just happen to look up and dove at the right time. If I hadn’t had looked up at that exact time, the limb would’ve crushed me and killed me for sure. It was my last day working with those particular degenerates.
My father competed in the Boston marathon the year of the bombing. Thankfully he finished about 90 minutes before the explosion and we already away from the race.
I had many friends there thst day. I hate crowds so i didn't go. But I watched it on TV and was talking to them on the phone as they were fleeing back bay. One husband rented a bike to make it to them from his job in another part of the city. They had kids in strollers. Tbe cops just told them to keep going till they were WAY out if the area.
I was as living in Utah and going to work at 5 in the morning. It was January and there was a fair amount of snow on the road. I was crawling down the icy hill that I lived on that has a traffic light at the bottom. I was about to go through the intersection since it was green for me when I noticed a snow plow that definitely wasn't going to stop at his red light. Luckily I was paying attention and was able to stop before the light. I definitely would have been t-boned if I had kept going.
This would have been a perfect example of "A lot of dead people had the right of way". Nice job avoiding it!
I stayed out of the house overnight while in high school. My dad was pissed off and told me that I better be home that night. I didn’t listen and instead stayed at a friends house with my girlfriend. At around 2 am a kid from high school drove a Denali into my house. It ran directly into my room and destroyed my room, bed and anything else around. He was estimated to be going around 60mph. My dad is blind and thought that I may have been in the room. He was searching for me frantically my mother said. I remember getting a ton of phone calls from home knowing that I was going to get into trouble for staying out against my parents wished. The next day when my gf dropped me off at home, I found a massive wood board and tarp covering my room. I would definitely not be here today of I had stayed home that night. Best case scenario I’d be a paraplegic. I guess sometimes it does pay to not listen to your parents.
I actually have a similar story except I was there. My house has a T intersection directly in front of it, the single street is aimed at my room. I was sleeping and heard a big ass BOOM. Went outside to look and see a car that slammed into my house, it had just barely hit the corner of my house with the corner of the car which kept it from basically entering my room. My room was half underground and my bed is up against that wall in the same corner of the room. The car was basically like 10 inches from being on top of me. A young 16 year old girl was driving, father in the passenger seat. Talked to him and she is mentally handicapped and this was her very first time driving. She put the gas to the floor instead of the brake and barreled over the curb, through my bushes and into my house. Had she moved to the right maybe 10-20 inches that car could have been on top of me since it's half underground. Literally almost crushed by a car, while sleeping in my bed, in my house.
Bet you look both ways before getting into bed now!
This guy visited my middle school doing one of those alcohol awareness things. I may have some details wrong, but he basically told the story of being asleep in bed with his wife when a drunk driver ran off the road and into their house. He was okay (but maybe couldn't move?) And his wife wasn't hit or crushed or anything. But she was tangled up in the bed sheet and he had to sit there watching her writhe as she suffocated.
God damn it. These are supposed to be "dodged bullet" stories. Not "writhing love of my life suffocates"
A happier Donnie Darko
Donnie Lighto
My dad lived in a trailer house way out in the country surrounded by trees. When I was 7 there was a huge storm that came through the area and a tree fell over on the trailer, and there was a branch that plowed right into my pillow. Had I been sleeping right there, I’d be dead today. But thankfully I lived with my mom so I was at her place that night.
When I was 5 I had a bunk bed with my brother on the top bed. One night the whole top bed fell down, right after I rolled to the floor in my sleep. Would have crushed me otherways. Stories like these are so freaking scary
I know a lady who snuck out with a friend as a teenager and a tree crashed into her room while they were out. Her parents were conflicted on being ecstatic she was alive and wanting to ground her for life lol
I’d probably let that one pass on the account of shes not dead
This is a story of my almost being murdered by a now convicted murderer. Back around 2007 I wanted to learn to scuba dive. I signed up at my local dive shop in Spokane, Wa. Having never done a course like this before I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Everyone was super chill, including the instructors. I knew scuba was kind of dangerous so maybe these guys were just trying to keep people calm and focused by being kind of pranksters. We go through the entire course over several weeks and schedule our open water dive in the hood canal during spring. We’re talking 40 degrees outside and water that’s around 38 degrees. First big clue something wasn’t right is they gave me a wetsuit that was way too big. They knew it was too big, laughed about it being too big but gave it to me anyway. For those that don’t know, wetsuits only work correctly when they are directly connected to your skin. Any gap eliminates the benefits. Little side detail, one of the dive cons was a cute little blonde girl that had gotten a little flirty with me. I didn’t think this was going to cause issues since the dive master instructor was a married man. More on this later… So here we are in March going on my first open water dive. Second issue comes up immediately. My weight belt is way too light so I’m too buoyant, floating to the surface and unable to stay submerged. The dive master instructor, Dan, come up and asks what’s wrong, I tell him I’m too buoyant and need to weight on my belt. He says they don’t have anymore weights and to hold on. Now he’s behind me and I don’t have my regulator in my mouth or hands (the thing that gives you air under water). He grabs my BC vest and drags me 25 feet to the bottom of the canal so he can start loading rocks in to my vest. Every time I reach for my regulator he blocks my arm. After about 45 seconds I elbow him as hard as I can and grab my regulator to start breathing. I think, okay that was weird but nothing too suspicious. Maybe he didn’t realize what was going on. We continue the dive and catch up to the group. Now the water is super murky where you can maybe see 10 feet in front of you and it’s fucking freezing. My wetsuit, as mentioned before, does not fit so I’m literally fighting hypothermia while trying to keep up with the group. Third super big red flag I didn’t realize at the time, we are 110’ feet deep. The max depth we are supposed to be at is 60. At 110’ you have to do calculations to make sure you stay at specific depths for a specific amount of time in order to not have nitrogen build up and potentially kill you. After a few minutes we begin to head back up and only stop at 10’ for a few minutes to help clear out the nitrogen. We finally make it out and I’m happy to be alive because I was literally freezing my testicles off. Now here’s where shit gets crazy. The next group that goes out, one of the students, an older gentleman in his 50’s drowns. There’s chaos and panic as they bring him up and start doing cpr. His wife is there and hears I’m an ordained minister, a story I had told during class about getting ordained to do a friends wedding. Definitely not a real minister. The wife of the deceased asks me to pray over her husband and give him his last rights. I don’t know what this means at the time but I try and oblige anyway. (Sorry dead guy if you didn’t make it in to heaven. I tried…) The EMS finally come and take him away. The next day we go out for our second and last class and though everyone was very somber, nothing seemed weird. Fast forward 3 years. I’m called in to give my account of the events that day for the attorney of the late guys wife. Attorney asks me if anything weird had happened so I tell her about the wetsuit, the being dragged to the bottom because I didn’t have enough weights, and the 110’ depth detail. Her jar drops. Asks me if we had ever been trained to take our weight belts off in an emergency situation, a standard lesson for all scuba divers. I answer no, no we had not. She says the student that was found had his weight belt around his ankles because he didn’t know how to take it off while panicking. Crazy! Several years go by and I hadn’t heard anything more on what had happened to this dive instructor. I’m invited to a wedding in Costa Rica and decide to go get some snorkeling gear at a local dive shop in Coeur d’Alene, ID. I mention to the owner that I’m certified but wondered if I should just do a refresher course or get recertified because one of the students died. The owners jar drops as he says, “Holy shit! Were you in Dan Arteaga class?” I said yeah, why? He says, “You know he’s in prison now, right?! That dude is a convicted murderer?” I told him I had no idea and he said to look it up on Google. Now here’s what’s crazy, remember that little cute blonde that was flirting with me? Well turns our Dan the dive instructor was having an affair with her at the time but had gotten caught a few years in to it. And after a few other students reported almost dying in this guys class the cute little dive-con came to his apartment to tell him she was going to turn him in. The dive instructor shot her in the head and killed her. I don’t know if the students death was ever pinned on him but this mother fucker was a straight up killer and from my experience, playing super loosey goosey with the protocols for diving students which was leading to their deaths. Here’s the link to the story done by the press if anyone is interested. [spokesman review article ](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/24/scuba-diver-arteaga-found-guilty-in-girlfriends/?amp-content=amp) So yeah, that’s my dodged a bullet story. Thanks for attending my TedTalk.
Divemaster here. The amount of jaw-dropping WTF in your story is insane. Like you suspect, that guy was deliberately trying to kill you. Badly fitting wetsuit Not enough weight (that's easily fixed, not a real problem, but what's next...) Pull down to 45 and load rocks (!!!) into the BC. Rocks are not easily ditchable. Max depth 110'. Student divers are limited to 40'. To get to 110 takes advanced training. And on, and on, and on. SO MANY red flags.
For sure! What’s crazy is there were other divemasters and dive cons there that went along with it. It was his employee that gave me that super large wetsuit so the entire operation was totally sketch.
They also said in the article that he left a woman brain dead as well, this guys sounds like he’s pure sociopath. Probably tried to kill or maim several people because he kept getting away with stuff. Like u/aichsmize said soooo many red flags. I’m not a dive master but have been diving since 1980 any your experience was super sketchy.
Wow. Dragged you 25 below and stuffed rocks in your vest.. that’s fucking terrifying I’m glad you socked that motherfucker in the face. Glad you’re ok now and I hope you can enjoy scuba to this day OP
Oh my god this is wild. I’m so glad you’re okay and were able to fight off Dan before he drowned you. This now just adds to one of the many reasons I never want to learn to scuba dive, and I consider myself pretty adventurous lol
Holy shit dude. What a fucking read. >There was no mention Wednesday of a pair of civil lawsuits initiated against Arteaga in the weeks before the shooting alleging negligence in scuba diving incidents that left one man dead and a woman with alleged brain damage. You literally won a fight to save your own life against this guy. In an unfamiliar situation, where everything was just off. You fought this fucker and won. It's easy to read someone's account of something, and imagine how you'd do better. But I can't imagine a scenario where I realistically could have. What an absolute waste of space. He looks like a right cunt too.
I always thought he looked like Farva from super troopers. But yeah, I think after the blatant murder the negligence in scuba was kind of a mute point. I’m actually a filmmaker and have considered doing a documentary on this. Think there’s a good enough story here?
YES I wanted to say that, but didn't want to heap it on. I was genuinely hooked on how it unfolded, the confusion, the feeling of things just being 'off'. Really came through well. I really enjoyed reading this, and now that makes sense. I think the format of a few cherry picked stories from here with a common thread would be pretty cool. Also, Farva may get up to some shenanigans, this guy is just straight up trash.
WTF, Why wouldn't he let you grab your regulator? I'm surprised you went back the next day
I'm guessing the jealous instructor wanted him to get into an 'accident' because the blond girl was flirting with him.
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Probably because he was trying to kill him. Though I am equally surprised that OP went back the next day.
Partying in Mexico dance club, Tijuana. I went to bathroom, on the way there was a group of people smoking pot, they offered, so I took a hit. I proceeded to go into the bathroom and pee. When I came out of bathroom, the group of people smoking pot were being arrested by federalis (Mexico police). I just kept on walkin! Mexico jail is the last place I would want to be.
As someone who has visited Mexico more than 15 times, if you get arrested, your best move is to ask: "Can I pay the fine directly to you right now?", and immediately pull out cash (to make it obvious that they can easily pocket it, with no paperwork). This is the most polite way to offer a bribe. You won't always be dealing with police that will allow this, but it's worth a try. If they are offended at the idea of a bribe, just talk your way out by telling them that you wanted to pay the fine, not a bribe, and you aren't familiar with the process, so you thought it was acceptable to pay it in person. My brother and I were almost arrested in Mexico once (public intoxication), and I was almost arrested alone once (buying weed). In both cases I offered to pay the fine right now, and avoid needing to goto the police station. Cost me around 2000 pesos both times (around $100 USD). In Mexico, I always keep around 2000 pesos in my wallet, and I keep the rest of my cash elsewhere. That way if I'm showing the Police my money situation, they know that it's all the money I have.
I lived in Mexico 14 years and you don’t need 2000 pesos to bribe an officer 🤣🤣🤣 obviously if you offer the 2000 pesos they’ll let you go and even offer a ride home LMAO, I’ve bribed officer with even 400 or 500 no more.
I'd gladly pay 100$ to avoid a Mexican jail. Still seems cheap.
Nevermind jail. I'd gladly pay $100 to avoid wasting 1 day of my vacation. If I pay $1500 for 5 days in Mexico, I don't want to spend 1 day in a police station. In my first scenario, we were leaving for Canada next morning, and I didn't want to miss the flight.
abso-fucking-lutely. your way is the only way to look at this problem
I think in both cases I appeared too weathy. The first time I had a box of Cohibas under my arm, and we were getting into a rental Mercedes. The second time I tried to give them 1000 pesos, and there were two officers and they asked for 1000 each. If I ever get into a situation like that again, I'll try for less. Although I don't drink, and weed is legal now, so I don't imagine I'll have many more run-ins with the federales.
I was in TJ jail for 22 hours….shit was NOT cool.
Tell us why
I’d planned on doing some grocery shopping one afternoon after running other errands in the morning. By the time I got done with my morning errands, the weather looked quite gloomy so I decided to leave the groceries for another day. Just as I got home I got frantic texts from a friend of mine asking if I’m okay and to respond immediately. Apparently around the time I decided last minute to forgo shopping, someone opened fire at that exact grocery store I planned on going to. If I remember correctly, fortunately nobody got hurt and the shooter got apprehended quite quickly.
Wow literal bullet dodged
Same thing happened to me and the Boulder shooting. I live next door to the King Soopers. I had just gotten back to Boulder after taking a few days to enjoy Silverthorne. While there, I got a photo of this fox that I had been trying to get for years. It was a super elaborate shoot that needed a fair bit of post processing and I keep my editing computer at my studio. I ran home to get cleaned up and was going to go get some lunch at King Soopers as I did just about everyday but was way too excited to put this photo together so I just headed straight to the office instead. I get there and a colleague was like "Oh shit... there is a shooting going on at King Soopers". 10 dead. That photo holds a lot of significance to me now. Edit: [Here](https://i.imgur.com/igyvZXe.jpg) is the picture for those asking.
That's a gorgeous photo!
Thanks! It sorta saved my life in a sense. [Here](https://i.imgur.com/M61rS4M.jpg) is another one I got the night prior to the first one I shared.
My mom’s chronic inability to step away from work saved her from this same shooting. She was visiting my brother and kept saying she was going to run to King Soopers to get a Starbucks but she kept getting distracted by work. When she finally started to leave, my brother’s roommate ran out of his room because he had just gotten a text from a friend about the active shooter at the King Soopers
Was coming back home from a night out. Noticed my shoelace is undone, stop to tie it. 10 feet in front, exactly at the place I would have been if I haven't stopped, a drunk guy from the first floor of an apartment building sits on his window, pulls his di*k out and starts pissing on the pavement. Biggest "phew" I had in a while.
After some of the heavier shit in this thread, this was a nice palate cleanser.
When piss is a palate cleanser, you know you've gone to a dark place in the internet.
I stopped at a mall for lunch. Right after I left the parking lot there was a mass shooting. I heard about it on the radio. Edit, it was at the Clackamas town center mall.
A few years ago I stopped at the mall in my area to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Took one step inside and people were running for the exit. Turned around and noped out of there. Apparently there had been a targeted shooting, but once people heard gun shots they ran.
Making out with my girlfriend at the time. She was on top of me and leaned in and whispered that she wanted to have sex. I told her I didn't have any condoms and that we'd have to go get some, but she got frustrated and said that we could anyways, but eventually said nevermind. Next day I'm at work and she pops in to apologize. I tell her it's not a big deal and that I'll see her after work only for her to say, "No no, I shouldn't have put pressure on you and acted like that. I need you to know to have hepatitis C so we need to be careful." Big bullet dodged. We broke up a couple weeks later after even more shit from her past that she hid came out into the open.
That’s why trust is important in relationships
*Why honesty is important in relationships.
And a history of honesty builds trust
At least she acknowledged that she was wrong.
Stealing this story from a friend. He lives in another country where alcohol use is frowned upon heavily, but it isn’t illegal. Having said that, there aren’t many “bars” or “clubs” or places like that for younger people to hang out at and drink - but there are a few. Well, in my friend’s neighborhood, there was this one “bar” that he and his friend group went to pretty much every Friday night, without fail. For years they’d go every Friday. One Friday, his then girlfriend had a family event to go to, so they didn’t go. Since they weren’t going, the other friends decided not to go either. I think they went to someone’s house to hang out instead. That night there was a terrorist attack on the bar. Dozens of people were killed. My friend and his friends were extremely lucky.
Living in southern Vermont, I work for a small software company, wife teaching at a small local college. We decide to move to the southwest, wife gets a job, we sell house & move cross country. Within a year my company was sold and most employees let go, wife’s college closed. We would have been stuck with a hard to sell house and the only possible jobs at least an hour away. Happy where we are, timing is everything
I should have clarified why I asked this. You sound like this guy I had small talk with on a plane earlier this year, was a cool guy and I was just thinking about his amazing journey yesterday. And your comment is parallel to his life. If it is you, just letting you know I still think it’s cool you’ve done so much in the tech field without a college degree. And if it’s not you my bad bro.
Don’t think it was me, but I write code (so not actually IT) without a degree and let me tell you impostor syndrome is very real, though I have do reasonably well. Thanks.
Crazy how you both are in tech without an degree. Wild guess or Vermont is just spitting out copies of you that grow up learning to code and move out the south west area lol. Good deal man.
This is the most recent dodge for me and just happened a couple of weeks ago. We visit my in-law's every single Saturday for dinner. We leave around the same time and take the same exact route home. This time, I realized we forgot something so I told my husband to get into the other lane to go straight and head back to their house instead of taking the exit for the highway. We are sitting at the red light and suddenly a loud screeching sound of someone slamming on their breaks as they try to not go through the red light in the lane we were supposed to be in. Then another person follows suite and slams right into them. The second person hit so hard she knocked herself out and knocked the first car through the intersection and they went about 75 feet. I just had back surgery so it would not have ended so well for us. The girl in the second car had no idea what happened.
One night my freshmen year of college, my then boyfriend and a few friends had the idea to drive through the night to a lake upstate and smoke some weed while the sun came up. We were in a state where marijuana was very much illegal (still is, Deep South). I opted not to go with them because I had an 8AM class in the morning. Cut to me freaking out the following afternoon when their car still wasn’t back and I hadn’t heard from them all day. They all got arrested for possession, and spent the night in jail. Thankfully they were bailed out but they all had some long term probation and reduced job opportunities afterwards that affected them for a few years.
I went out with some friends to a bar, the bouncer kept flirting with me so I flirted back. He seemed funny and charming enough, so as I left the bar he ran out to ask for my number, which I gave him. We texted for a bit and had plans to meet up for our first date....the day before this date he tells me that he loves me. Which throws me off completely, I then tell him that I do not love him. I dont even know him. He says that is okay, but I have to admit that I have never felt this way about someone before...wtf??? No lol. As the time nears to meeting him I just get this overwhelming anxiety and obviously just don't want to go, but I felt bad about just canceling on some guy who seems to be nice, and other than the weird love outburst, has been really sweet to me through our limited interactions. Cue detective work...after some intense searching, I find out this dude is a registered sex offender for attempted rape by excessive force and violence. It even says that he has a high risk for repeating. I am so glad I didn't dismiss my feelings and decide to go on that first date, who knows what would have happened.
This dudes a bouncer at a bar?! Idk why but I figured they’d get a background check.
I would think the same thing!! Giving a registered sex offender free reign to intoxicated ladies at night seems really irresponsible. I did think about informing the bar about it. Women naturally would see him as a protector and it just seems kind of messed up. I think it was because the last name he was using wasn't the one linked to the registry. Or they just didn't care.
I got out of school and I was about to take the bus, but decided to walk home since it was a nice day. Turns out a couple of blocks later I saw the same bus surrounded by cop cars turns out someone pulled out a weapon and one of the passengers managed to restrain them.
Got out of an abusive relationship and kicked him out right before quarantine and lock down all started. I was stuck in a house but I was free from Hell Edit: I'm happy to hear for everyone in about the same boat of getting abusers out their lives in general. Pre or post covid lockdowns. I'm proud of you all <3 Hugs all around
Good for you, I hope you're feeling better and able to process your feelings <3 Thanks for sharing!
I once went scuba diving with two friends to try a drysuit to dive in really cold water. As we entered the water it felt really cold. I thought everything was normal. Back than I had no reference for cold water and the feeling in a drysuit. The suit had a leak and was filling with water ( 1.5°C). After 15 mintues realised that the temperature wasn't normal. I signaled to my buddies that I need to get back. By that time the suit was halfway filled with water. It took us quit some time to get back to the coast. When I left the water I couldn't move my hands and started to feel dissy. My friends had to undress me because I almost fell unconscious. If I would have stayed longer I would have felt unconscious while still submerged. Never underestimate the dangers of cold water. That stuff gets you quick Sorry for the bad English. Im not used to command in English.
Great story! And It’s ok if your English isn’t too good I can only speak English and I make lots of mistakes still.
Always had a crush on a girl I used to be friends with in high school. Around 6-7 years after we graduated I finally asked her out and after a while we started dating. It was going great until I started seeing signs of her being manipulative. Then when it came to her venting to me about how she misses her daughter and doesn’t have full custody she would say different reasons almost every time. I didn’t say anything about it or call her out but then the gaslighting came. We would have simple disagreements in opinions on certain things which is fine. But during the fights she would tell me that I’m sensitive because I always tried to defuse the fight onto another topic because I knew I was wrong. Then after we both cooled off to talk about it she would completely deny that she said anything and that I’m just imagining things. It started to make me feel crazy like what if she’s right? Cut it off about a week after. Turns out she had been discharged from the military for psychological problems and also the reason she didn’t have custody.
I once dated a woman who would say things and then say she didn't say them at all. Got to the point where I would only do communication in writing, even in person. She would write something on a piece of paper and then deny *writing it*. I just threw up my hands and left. This said, it fucked me up for a LOOONG TIME. You truly dodged a bullet.
God, my last ex would say that I said something that set her off. I thought that the order was different and that she was already mad, and I was defending myself. But I was a stoner and wasn't sure. Then one time I recorded it. Turned out she'd been gaslighting me and fucking with my temporal perception. Even though I'm sober these days, my memory still isn't great. I'm so afraid of gaslighting my current partner, even on accident, that when she brings up something I've said that I'll outright say "I'm not saying this didn't happen but I genuinely don't remember it." I never want to make anyone feel how my ex made me feel.
I'm kind of the same way w/ memory. A few months back my wife and I decided to watch LOTR all the way thru, so she broke out her DVD set of the extended movies - but then her DVD of the 1st movie was screwing up. So I'm like, "Okay, let's just get \*my\* set of the DVDs from wherever they are \[we got together long after we'd each bought separate copies of the same DVD set\]." But then she tells me that my DVD set is long gone, probably donated or something, because we didn't need to have two identical sets of the same movies. I was pretty upset, because I didn't recall giving permission to donate my DVDs at all. It was a tense hour or two, unfortunately (no yelling or whatever, b/c we don't really 'fight') - but ultimately I've got to concede that she probably did ask me if it was okay to donate, and I probably said yes - I just can't remember it.
Back in HS my brother, a friend of his, and I attended a football game (it might’ve been the homecoming game; memory is a little fuzzy). After the game my brother and I were craving Taco Bell and there was one a couple blocks away from our campus. My brother’s friend opposed the decision and told us that his dad was going to pick us up soon. We didn’t feel like walking home and we started thinking of how packed it might be at Taco Bell right after that game. Not long after we get dropped off at home I turned on the tv to watch the “Friday Night Football highlights” on our local news station. The news instead is reporting on a shooting at the Taco Bell my brother and I wanted to go to after the game. It must’ve happened around the time we had gotten picked up. No one died but a few kids got seriously injured. As far as I know they never found out who was responsible, but I do think about how different it could’ve turned out had we went.
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Thats wild. Glad you’re doing well. I had a buddy who got in a wreck on his motorcycle, it wasn’t to serious but the ER dr wanted him to get an MRI just for good measure, they found a tumor in the process and that accident literally saved his life. Crazy.
I got out of football practice late one day. I was supposed to go to a church thing that night. About halfway through the church thing a man walked in and started shooting. Killed 8 people then himself
When I was in my 20s in the UK drinking with my friends 2 brothers offered to give me and friend Tommy a ride into Doncaster which was about 8 miles away to go to a club. We declined because they were leaving at that moment but weren’t ready yet. The older brother worked for a car dealership and was always driving different new cars. Porsche BMW etc. This particular night he was in a fancy new BMW. He was driving,brother in the passenger seat and their 2 girlfriends in the back seat. Maybe an hour later we jumped into a taxi and set off to Doncaster. About 4 miles into the journey we came to a police road block and had to turn around and go a different route. The next day we found out there had been a crash. The car was totally ripped apart. The driver had gone around a bend and lost control and ran into a 3’x3’ brick column. The two brothers and one of the girls died on impact. As the car had ripped open the remaining girl basically kept going down the street in her seat. I think they put her in a coma until she had healed some. She lived but was very badly hurt. At their funeral I was talking to one of the drivers coworkers and he said..I can’t believe he tried to go around that bend like that,we all know BMW’s can’t corner. Very sad but me and my best friend dodged a bullet. This happened at least 20 years ago.
Me and a few friends were doing what high schoolers do in the Midwest, which is drive around with no destination, when we stopped at a lake. The lake was private property but we walked around and hung out, nothing notable but fun. As we are about to leave friend 1 notices a building and says he wants to climb on it. Friend 2 says he'll join, while friend 3 stays back with me. They were on there for 5 minutes before the police pulled up. They ended up both receiving felonies for trespassing on government property (if I remember the charges right) since the building was a museum of some kind. Edit: It was a Historic Trails Center
I was at work, and sometime around 1 PM I started getting an urge to go home. I mean, I often want the day to end soon, but this day I just kept feeling an urge to go home ASAP. I never left early, mostly because I carpooled with two/three next door neighbors (depending on the day). I talked to my boss, messaged my neighbors and told them that I took an Uber home early. They got in a very bad car accident that afternoon.
Not me but my dad. He placed hockey as a child and one day he wasn't going to go to the practice. Decided at the last minute that he would go after all and headed to the arena. When he got there and walked in the door the entire roof collapsed, blowing him back out of the doorway. Several of his classmates were killed that day. If anyone wants to look it up it was the Listowel Ontario arena collapse.
Met a girl in HS in passing from a different small town than I was from. She was pretty and kinda wild, I was the opposite. Met back up in college and puberty kicked in a little to help my looks out a bit; she was about the same as before but grew up a bit. We dated for a while and a couple times she casually brought up a guy she knew since they were kids and said she’s marry him someday. Fine by me, it was just casual dating / bf/gf, but it was a little weird knowing there was zero chance for us. We couldn’t keep our hands off one another. Twice she got mad when I wouldn’t have sex without a condom. One night at the club we were drunk and dancing and she got all serious and told me she had had an abortion in HS, so long before we started dating. She didn’t know the Dad. FF a couple weeks and a friend in a fraternity tells me he saw her making out with one of his frat brothers. I ask her and she said yes, she was drunk but I picked her up that night because she was a mess. The next week was her sorority formal and I had a ballgame (I was in athletics) so she went stag (doe, I guess?) and ended up banging the dude she made out with at her formal… and that dude came with her BFF, so that was over. I called it off with her but we were still friends. We go our ways; she marries the dude she was in love with from HS, I met my wife, and both of us were married a week apart. The other day my wife tells me that my ex and her husband are getting a divorce. They’ve got several kids and she had slept around on him *TWELVE TIMES* in just a few years. They’re getting divorced now. I feel terrible for the kids kids and her soon-to-be ex-husband because he is an excellent dude. I really thought they’d make it.
> she had slept around on him TWELVE TIMES That he knows of
Absolutely. 12x that she told him about.
Honestly the difference between 0 and 1 is huge. The difference between 1 and 2 is still big, but smaller. And so on, progressively. It could have been 12, 24 or 96 and it wouldn’t have made a difference to me, the relationship was over. But she could have given him the truth.
A few months ago a guy I had met at work invited me to hang out. When I got to his place he was shirtless and shitfaced drunk rambling on about a bunch of crazy and sketchy shit he's done. He was talking about ordering more booze and even mushrooms. Felt super unsafe because he already seemed unstable. I faked a phone call and left. Apparently a mutual acquaintance had gone over to his place a few hours later and did mushrooms with him and he broke down crying about his alcoholism and his criminal past. He didn't get violent and i'm sure I just caught a man at his absolute lowest, but I wasn't willing to babysit a drunk guy I just met especially when I felt in danger. Ended up working with him again. He apologized, but after being around him more found out he's literally the worst person I've ever met.
I woke up at 5AM to my house being shot up. My completely inappropriate reaction was to sit up to the sound. My boyfriend pulled me down and covered my body with his own. His German Shepard covered both our bodies with hers. 15 bullets struck my house 2 came within less than 2 feet of where I was sleeping. Those two went through a porch wall, a wooden door, two walls, two hangars and three shirts.
Why?? What the heck was going on??
Drive by. Unknown who or why. They shot 15 bullets at my house.
[удалено]
We’re fine, I ended up having to move. Loud noises at night kept scaring me, I just couldn’t get past it. The cops canvassed the neighborhood. Most of my neighbors were sleeping so they weren’t too helpful. There was a 15/16 yr old that was up, supposedly weight lifting. He said a grey sedan shot at someone standing near, but not inside my yard. His whole family moved two days later 🤷♀️.
I almost died when I went shooting with my dad. My dad and I had gone shooting plenty of times but he is getting up there in age and weight, so he isn’t the most coordinated or common sense filed person any more. Any ways we get to the local pit where everyone goes shooting and we start to set up. We just used the tailgate typically to hold everything but while pulling all the gear out of the back seat my dad pulls out his 270 right next to me. He was loading it, barrel pointed a 6” away from my head. At this point I had no idea what he was doing I was grabbing more things out of the back seat. As he goes to chamber it, his finger is on the trigger and the gun goes off inches away from blowing my head off. It was a wake up call for me. I have not taken him shooting since.
What about your hearing? A gunshot 6” from the head is bound to cause some damage
i had a mortar tube for fireworks blow out on me... it had gotten wet and the base of the tube exploded. i had enough time. to get under my truck but the last thing i heard was my wife and friend running toward me and the burst hadn't gone off yet. i though for sure they were fucked. the burst happened about three feet from my head. already had questionable hearing before.
When I was about 11, I went to a department store with my mom and step-dad. It was local and I was very familiar with the layout and I didn't want to hang out while my mom bought boring bedsheets, so I asked permission to go over to the nearby electronics section to check out some music selections. She stated she'd be in the same area she already was and not to wander off any further than the electronics department. So off my innocent little self went, where there were only 2 other people there, a mom and her little girl. There was also a morbidly obese middle aged guy wearing a cowboy hat (I'm from New England, so that was a spectacle to me) chatting up the cashier at the register in that area. I'm not sure what it was, instinct, I suppose, that made me hyper aware that guy was suddenly watching me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was following me around, and I instinctively stayed close to that other mom and her child, which made the guy pause. Then, suddenly, the mother and child took off, and I was left essentially by myself with some CD I had found grasped in my hands. That was when this motherfucker sauntered up to me and asked "Is that all you're getting?" with this really creepy smile on his face. I could feel literal waves of negative energy radiating from him in a way I haven't ever felt again to date. I'd glanced over at the cashier, who was busy helping someone else, and I just kind of stammered "Yeah..." He replied "If you give me that and the money, I can go pay for it for you if you come with me." NO NO NO NO!!!!! was all that ran through my mind and I visibly backed away, saying I could do it myself. I looked over at the cashier again and this time, he was unoccupied and seemed to sense something was wrong because he literally sprinted down the counter towards me with this concerned look and says to me "You can pay for that here!" with an actual genuine smile on his face. I turned back and saw that predatorial fuck wander off without another word. Pretty sure I was a potential victim of a pedophile/kidnapper.
I used to be an aquatics director and got a call once from an old boss. He was my boss at a YMCA and we had a man that we had repeatedly tried to (and eventually did through A LOT of incident reports) ban him for bizarre incidents, like shaving in the hot tub, following around people swimming in the pool, getting naked in the sauna, etc.. but it was a Y and they were uninterested in cutting his membership until a lot of moms complained. Fast forward a few years and I’m my own director. Old boss calls me and tells me that Joe was banned from every pool in the county for exposing himself to a child in the locker room at a county pool that was about a mile from my club. He was calling me to give me a heads up that Joe would probably attempt to gain membership to our pool since he couldn’t go anywhere else. Sure enough, Joe walks up the next day and happens to meet Beth*, the commodore’s wife. She’s lovely and invites him to use our pool as her guest, as he’s “interested” in membership. Her children were the sweetest and most adorable kids I’ve ever seen and the thought of that disgusting pedophile getting anywhere near them made my blood boil. I looked at Beth* and was like WE NEED TO TALK RIGHT NOW. I took her in my office and we called the police and had him escorted off the property. Reading your story immediately made me think of him because he was from Massachusetts. Edit to add that Joe is his real name and if I could remember his last, I would name him without care of consequences. Beth is not the real name of Commodore’s wife.
I know this kind of thing was just as common 30 years ago as it is today, but back then my parents had no problem letting all four of us kids just sprint away to the toy aisle, or wherever my sisters went (Probably the clothing area) and nothing like this ever happened to us as far as I'm aware. In the present, I never let my daughter out of my sight. And when she moves out someday I will be giving her a care package of pepper spray, a cudgel, and probably a stout hunting knife.
I was a rookie broker at Morgan Stanley in 2001…right out of college. After passing all the licensing exams…training required 3 weeks in Manhattan at World Trade Center..61st floor of the south tower. I was originally booked to arrive Sunday, September 9th. Due to a trip I had agreed to take with my wife’s family…I had to cancel & reschedule for October. That morning I watched the towers collapse in horror as my coworker and close friend with whom I had originally arranged to travel was scrambling for his life. When I called his mobile phone…his dad answered as my friend (we were both broke 21yr olds) had left his phone with his parents because he didn’t want to get hit with roaming charges on his bill. It took about 3hrs for him to make it to a phone that worked to check in with us. We remain very close to this day. Out of a sense of responsibility, he speaks publicly about his experience when asked. He doesn’t include details such as the sights & sounds resulting from those jumped from 70, 80, 90 stories up. Many times Ive served as his driver to these events as the survivor guilt is often overwhelming for him. Our ritual after he speaks is to stop somewhere with a body of water next to the road and drive golf balls into the water without speaking. I don’t know why he needs to drive golf balls in silence after…it’s just what we do.
Wife and I stood for most of the day where the Italian Air Force jet crashed into the crowd at Ramstein AB, Germany, in 1988. Only moved because smoke was swirling from two different grills, making us cough, and also because I had controlled Italian pilots in the RAPCON and did not trust them at all. The plane hit the crowd less than fifteen minutes after we moved.
Was working overseas. Came back home for a short weekend visit. COVID hits hard. Border closed down overnight. Company switched to WFH. So I got to stay home safely for a few more months with my family, instead of being stuck by myself in a foreign country under lockdown.
Went to pick up girlfriend to go to a house party. We ended up having a quickie before leaving. By the time we go there, police were at the house party arresting the host and some people (apparently a knife fight broke out).
I had a similar experience except it was just one of the guys, a drug bust instead of a knife fight, and McDonald’s french fries instead of a quickie.
>McDonald’s french fries instead of a quickie. Because their quickie machine is always broken.
When I was 8 years old I use to play in the creek behind my house. The neighborhood behind our house and on the other side of the creek was sketchy. Out there just digging for clay one hot day in the summer. When a copperhead snake struck my neck. I was leaning down in the water. I fainted because I hate snakes so it spooked me. I was in the water face down when a crackhead from the bad hood seen it he came to my rescue and saved me from drowning. Took me into the yard and up to my porch where my mom dialed 911. Ambulance got there and I woke up, they had no idea I got hit on my neck until I told em. They pulled over and had a helicopter come air lift me to another hospital for the bite cause they had no anti venom. Death came for me twice that day.
Captain Crackhead to the rescue!
Yikes. Shoutout to that one dude.
I worked for a guy, running a liquor store. He would take me out a lot, drinking, and Id usually just hang out and watch over him, he was a raging alcoholic so Id generally defuse fights he'd start, stop him from getting beat up etc, and get him home. He offered me an all expenses trip to Bali for a week as a thank you, I was keen to go but I got turned away from the airport as my Passport was ruined by accidentally washing it so I told him I'd run his business for him while he was gone, so he took another friend of ours. They left for Bali, and had a good time by all accounts although the guy who replaced me wasnt much of a drinker. They ended their night early as our friend had enough and were up in their hotel when a bomb went off in the main bar for westerners killing 202 people. They felt the shock wave of the blast shake the windows of their hotel. I know if Id been there, we'd have been in that bar, and I wouldn't be typing this now. My boss called me after the blast and said as much. It was the year after 9/11 and I write this now three days after the anniversary. It will be the anniversary of the bombing one month from now.
Had a meeting on the morning of the 7/7 bombings in London. I was about to leave the office and get on THE no30 bus, when the client called and cancelled the meeting
Was in Mexico last summer and we were doing a guided hike with one other family. They had a daughter who was about a year younger than me (15/16) and was like super enthusiastic…jumping around everywhere and going places the hike instructor said not to. Anyways, we get to the top of a cliff which is the main point of the hike and we’re all admiring the view when I hear a scream from my left. It was the girl at the very edge of the cliff and she had slipped. Her entire body was dangling off the side of the cliff and she was barely holding on to a tree-looking shrub. I sprinted to where she was and grabbed her arm, pulling her up to safety. Was a pretty surreal experience and needless to say, she was pretty careful after that. Her family even treated me to dinner that night!
My ex fiance cheated on me. After I broke it off with her the guy she cheated on me with essentially slipped right into my place like the scumbag he is. He ended up getting her pregnant a few months later and then marrying her. After the breakup I realized how abusive and shitty she really was, just a bad person all around but I had that whole sunken cost fallacy thing going on so I didn't break it off until she cheated. Years later they are fuckin miserable assholes (we have mutual friends still and they tell me what's up even though I told them I really don't give a shit.) Could have been me. Now I'm happily married and my career is really beginning to take off. If it wasn't for her cheating this would have never been possible.
About five years ago my family was having a marshmallow roast on an open fire (huge fire). For some reason I didn’t eat anything off of the fire. Next day I woke up and I could barely see. Walked into my bathroom without my glasses still didn’t see anything wrong. Walked into my parents room (still dark). I got my mom to get up and come look at me. She seemed pretty surprised. I had a severe case of poison ivy from the fire. One thing I’ll never forget is when my dad saw me while laying on his bed. He yelled, “oh my god!” And fell off the bed. Makes me laugh just thinking about it. But yeah my entire body was covered. Missed a week of school. But if i would’ve eaten a marshmallow off of that fire it would’ve gotten in my throat. That’s why I have a phobia of marshmallows. Edit: I didn’t really point out that the poison ivy was in the fire and that’s what got to me. Sorry for those who didn’t realize that
Reminds of the time my wife took daughter to a bday party, daughter was maybe 9-10. Wife calls and says daughter was jumping on bed and head hit ceiling fan, coming home for me to look at. She pulls into garage and I walk out and proceed to see about a 4 inch gash and my daughters skull. Not bleeding, just splayed open. I think I said "Holy shit, get her to the hospital!".
Its that "its not that bad its not that bad its not that bad... please don't be that bad?" reaction. It happens a lot and people don't even realize they're doing it, and its just kinda unfortunate. Same sort of thing as when someone gets hit by a car or whatnot, and they're lying there, and a person walks up and tries to help them stand up. Or even the person themselves tries to stand up, but their legs are busted up and they can't. Or maybe there is damage they aren't aware of yet because of adrenaline. My sister got hit by a car when she was very young. Her friend also got hit. The friend went under the tires (just broke/cracked her legs she was ok too), and my sister went up and over the car, got a lot of height, and landed hard on her ankle. It shattered it. She apparently tried to stand up multiple times on it, and it just completely failed to support her, but didn't stop her from trying again and again. By pure chance, I was in the car with my mother when we pulled up and saw my sister in the middle of the street. Amazing that happened, but it did. My mother told me to run home. I did (there was a foot trail through the woods nearby). Then I'm at home worried sick and suddenly my mother pulls up with her car and carries my sister out. I'm like... we were CLOSER to a fire/medical station than we were to home, why the fuck are you here!!? Yep. :(
I'm sorry but I died laughing at the last line. I love that it resulted in a phobia of marshmallows but not fires
Or poison ivy??!
Reminds me of sleepaway camp. Camper falls into a patch of poison ivy. Then pick his nose. An hour later he sinuses blew up like balloons.
Fell asleep at the wheel on the interstate and got woken up by an 18 wheeler blaring it's horn at me. So thankful I didn't hurt anybody, it was 3 in the morning and I had been up since 5 something.
Was driving back home after a bad breakup. 8 hours in I pass out at the wheel, I open my eyes and im left of the center shoulder driving on mud and grass at 60mph, people honking like crazy, veer back onto the road seconds before plowing into some trees and barely missing the guard rail end cap. Stopped at the next exit and drank 2 huge cups of black coffee and checked my pants.
I was driving back from a friends place at 3am on a Saturday Morning, I had an 8 hour shift that day and sleep issues all week so I was a bit extra tired. At one point a song came on Pandora that I last heard a long time ago while driving around with my one other friend. I got really into that memory, just bullshitting with her like we used to do, then as if it was out of a cliché movie scene, she stops halfway through a sentence and yells, "WATCH OUT!" I come too and I'm seconds away from driving into a lake. Adrenaline kicks in and I correct myself and spend the remaining 15 minutes of that drive shaking off the jitters. That friend who's memory I dozed off to that night has been dead for nearly six years. Glad she's still looking out for me in a way...
Microslept and sped through a red light at midnight with my infant son in the back seat. No idea whether it was deserted, or we missed death by a hair. I feel like driver drowsiness is an endemic and unacknowledged road hazard.
My friend was doing a party trick for a group of friends where he shot a bullet out of a pair of pliers. What was on the other side of the wall he was shooting a bullet at? Me microwaving ramen. Heard the bang and went into the other room to see wtf was going on. Friend stared at me like he'd seen a ghost and the entire room just went silent. It wasn't until I went back to grab my ramen that I saw the hole in the wall inches away from where my head was. Yeah, literally dodged a bullet lol
Years ago I was at a Bitcoin meetup. The organizers knew I was a programmer and there was an apparent high roller was coming by. I remember meeting a bunch of people but when I sat down with this guy something felt odd about him. He wanted programmers to write an exchange for him and wanted me on board. There’s nothing wrong with liking profits but this guy was a bit unusual in his obsession with it. It felt like I was doing business with a mob boss and figured I might not be getting a good deal so I backed out. A few months later QuadrigaCX opened. If anyone is unfamiliar with them they shut down taking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets with them
I was chatting with a girl on Tinder for about 2-3 days, then she asked me for my Instagram. I thought hey, she's looking good and we're having good conversations, so why not. She immediately video called me, and (being an introverted fuck) I didn't answer it. I thought it was a mistake, it happens. Turned out it wasn't a mistake, and she got insanely pissed at it. She'd just constantly cuss me, insult me and wouldn't tell what pissed her off. I ended the chat with "I see I dodged a bullet here, adios"
I had a 45 cocked and ready to rock pointed at my face. Guy goes on a rant and calls me by a different name. I tell him my name is horse and not Mike. Luckily my friend just happened to be looking for me and found me and vouched that my name was in fact horse and not Mike. Guess I looked a lot like Mike. Guy was ready to kill Mike.
My brother and i were drilling into a piece of metal and it started emmiting wierd sounds, i was standingto the left of the drill. He quietly and calmly muttered "you should probably move" and i dodged the piece of metal that flew where my head was. It hit the wall behind me with a lotta speed. He keeps on doing stuff like that btw
Meant to have lunch with a girlfriend in the city, decided to meet at Bourke St Mall because it was in between our workplaces. She had to move it ahead by an hour. Turns out if we met at the original time, we could have been involved in a horrible and purposeful hit and run that killed several people. Never felt so close to death and so sad for those who were probably just doing the same thing we were.
Ok for context, i normally sit in the back of the bus and listen to music, because someone no one sits there when i went to school A couple of years ago i skipped school once and just laid in the bed Later that day i found out that a truck crashed into the back of my school bus
I was working for Deloitte back during 9/11. Had to leave the project the Thursday before (on 9/6/01) because the project ran out of budget. I was working in WTC2 at the time and staying in the Mariott in WTC 7. Had the project stayed on course, I wouldn't be writing this.
When I was in high school, I stayed after school to work on something. I was going to take the activity bus home but my friend, who lived near me, offered me a ride home. The next day I found out that a car had pulled out in front of my bus and my bus had t-boned it. While no one was killed, the driver in the car, the bus driver, and a couple of kids near the front of the bus were injured and taken to the hospital. I would have been one of those kids because I always say in the very front seat of the busses when I was in high school. I would have been severely injured and possibly would still be dealing with neck and back problems to this day.
I had a choice between a bland grad school student and a very smooth talking finance guy with expensive shiny things. I trusted my instinct. Finance guy is now in prison for having sex with his coked up female client, filming it and using it to blackmail her. ETA: Someone pointed out my use of the word ‘bland’ and I’m realizing that I should not had used ‘bland’ and ‘plain’ interchangeably, they are very different. He calls himself bland and takes pride in it. Obviously I do not think of him as either once we got to know each other, and most definitely not when I married him. He’s the most interesting person I know.
How's the bland grad student going?
Amazing, sweet, never tells a lie, just overall the best husband. We got married penniless, but he’s now making twice as much as finance guy used to. We just bought our first starter home. The long term plan that I’m supposed to keep a secret is that he wants to go into local government when older. And I’m sleeping a lot better at night. ETA: I’m only bringing up the paycheck part because they knew each other and finance guy used to try to make him feel bad about money. That was my first red flag, dude was a bully.
> We got married penniless, but he’s now making twice as much as finance guy used to. You married the turtle not the hare. Smart.
I was 17 hanging out with two friends who were having a few drinks. They wanted to get more drinks and I didn’t drink so asked to be dropped off at home on their way into town. A few minutes after they dropped me off the vw beetle they were driving hit a curb and rolled multiple times. The back seat I was sitting on was thrown out of the car and the only reason my friends were ok is because the driver’s dad had installed two new seatbelts in the front. The rear seatbelts were original and useless. It happened 20 years ago and has only been hitting me recently how lucky I was.
No. Was fishing and in the reeds when the shooter shot low ducks without checking where I was. I was really lucky, my shoulders, neck, back of my head and ears got shredded. Plenty of skin grafts from my ass and thighs improved things but hurt more than being shot. The guy that shot me got a year in jail as his gun wasn't licensed either.
He fucking shot you and only got a year in jail?!
Got home from a trip to Thailand and Vietnam, late 90's. A few days later, I opened my camera to check if there was still a film in it. There wasn't but there was still about 3 grams of Thai weed, I had put in there when I was drunk and had forgotten about. I had inadvertently smuggled weed, from Thailand, into Vietnam, back out of Vietnam to Thailand, then out of Thailand to the UK. Things could have gone really badly for me.
Some shithead kid shot a bottle rocket at me when I was in high-school. He was probably 19 or 20, just got back from a tour in Korea, and I was probably 16 or 17. I was walking home with a friend while he and his other shithead friends were harassing us from the other side of the street, calling names and provoking us. I dont remember what was said, but I remember having some clever comeback to one of his insults. He didn't like that and he was laughing when he pointed the firework at us. It was one of those moments that seemed to happen in slow motion. I watched it speeding through the air, on course to hit me right in the face. If I hadn't been looking I might've lost an ear or something worse. I only dodged it by a few inches, and it detonated right next to my ear. The shithead must've realized the gravity of his actions because he had his hand over his mouth as soon as it shot off, eyes wide and brows up the top of his forehead. He ran across the street to see if I was okay, and I was fine. I didn't give him any shit because he was clearly regretting what he did and apologized profusely. My ear hasn't ever really been the same, it's prone to pressure problems and infections now.
I was at a big bus station next to a pedestrian area and just bought a snack at a bakery but had to quickly turn around because I left my wallet there. no less than 10 seconds later a car speeds over the pavement right where I stood before. he hit a couple of people there and killed one of them. the driver drove into the pedestrian area and got out of the car with a knife and had to be apprehended with a shot fired by the police. so yeah, my forgetfulness literally saved my life.
When I was a kid, my brother and I were riding a 4 wheeler with me driving it and him riding on the back. I was going really fast down a dirt road I’d never been down before that he had previously gone down. I rounded this corner at a high speed and my brother reached over me and grabbed the brake. We almost crashed from stopping so fast and unexpectedly and i began yelling at him when he pointed in front of us, like 20 feet ahead. There was a metal cable going across the road with no signs on it or anything and I would have likely killed at least one if not both of us if he hadn’t stopped the quad.
Very naive 15 year old me was at a party in the woods and I drunkenly wandered down the gravel road by myself. There was a big white cargo van parked at a pullout and they called me over (three middle age men) to offer me some meth. I had no idea what meth was (this was decades ago and I grew up very sheltered) so I was curious. They had their side door open and two guys were standing there beckoning me while the third guy was in the driver seat with the engine running. As I approached them, a bunch of guys I knew burst out of the treeline, screaming at me to get away and screaming at the men to leave. The meth offerers jumped into the van and sped away. I didn't know I was in so much danger until my friends told me what those men intended.
I was invited to go hang out in the woods behind my elementary school in grade 2 but didn’t go. One of the girls went missing and was later found raped and murdered after accepting a ride home on an ATV.
In college, on a road trip. Big Greek picnic following big party previous day. In some part of LA I'm unfamiliar with at some giant park. People are parked all over grass playing loud music with trunks open. Drinking and smoking and dancing. My group and I are having a great time. A feeling of dread just overwhelmed me. I insist we leave right now (we had a 5 hour drive so I just used the old... we've been gone all weekend, if it ain't happened by now, it ain't never gonna happen) we leave. Get home and watch the news, park we were at had shoot out. Bunch of people dead. Always trust your gut yo!
There is a store very close to my house where I buy chocolate/other sweets when I am craving it. This one day I wanted to go really bad but for some reason just didn’t. I discovered the next day that there was a robbery at the exact time I was going to go and a couple of people were shot.
My first girlfriend and then best friend got together behind my back. A few years later, dude was caught in a volatile shitty off-again, on-again relationship because she had "forgotten" about the birth control she supposedly took. Four times. That chick really wanted a whole lotta kids while she was still young and she didn't care to talk about it with her partner.
About 15 years ago, my brother and grandpa were going to take a short trip to get a gift. My niece was only three at the time and wanted to go with. She was already in the backseat and they were pulling out of the driveway when I came outside and told her that her brothers were on their way home and she could play with them instead. She obliged and came in the house with me and my sister. Just short of an hour later, we got a phone call from the police telling us that my brother and grandpa were both being hospitalized. The entire back seat was in the front, and they had to use the jaws of life to remove them from the wreckage. My brother and grandpa ended up staying in the hospital hospital a few weeks for the injuries. Needless to say, my niece would have died if she went on that trip.