Gut feelings exist for a reason. It's your mind's way of telling you something isn't right about a particular situation. In those cases, it would be wise to proceed with extra caution—oftentimes, trusting that intuition could be the difference between life and death. Here are some incredible stories of when gut feelings actually saved lives:
1. Just in Time
My wife called me while I was at work just to say she was home from her night shift and planning to go to bed. She had worked the night shift for years and never called me just to say she was home and going to bed before. She also sounded weirdly detached on the call. I asked her if she was okay, she said yes—she just felt really sleepy.
I got a weird feeling and told her I was going to leave work and come home. She told me I didn’t need to, I said okay...and then I left work and rushed home anyway. I found a suicide note taped to the garage door. I got to her in time, rushed her to the ER, and got her the help she needed. This was about five months ago, and she is so much better now.
2. Life-Saving Panic Attack
There are a bunch of bars right next to my university here where I live. At the start and the end of the semester everybody, thousands of students, start gathering around the street where most bars are located and just parties all night. On one of these occasions, in 2019, it was the end of the semester. I had just got there a bit late because I was working on the lab at the uni and the moment I got there something just didn't feel right.
It was either the people there, how they were acting, how they were moving or how they were talking. I just know that something felt different in the air. We were crossing through the giant group of people since we were looking for my girlfriend at the time and the people who we were expecting to meet there. Suddenly I froze in place.
I can't really explain why to this day, but I just felt something really bad was about to happen and my friend noticed how I was too attentive and kind of in panic. He snapped me out of it and I told him that we needed to find everyone and leave that place. To my surprise he just agreed. I think he noticed something was wrong with me and probably just went for it so I could calm down.
My girlfriend and our friends didn't take long to find and they were confused because I was acting so erratic and I was kind of having a panic attack. But they eventually followed me out of the crowd. As soon as we were out of the "bar area" we heard a bunch of gunshots and people started screaming. Shortly after that officers were rushing into the area.
What happened was that some gang members decided to use the party to settle some score, probably hoping the crowd would help them get out unnoticed. Five people lost their lives and three were injured that day. The authorities apparently caught them but I'm not sure about that part. After that those periodical parties at this street were never the same.
There are way fewer people and now they don't even close the streets anymore because it's not that big of a crowd. Who would have thought. To this day my friends like telling this story about how I "saved their lives" and, on rare occasions, someone asks me if I knew about the gang fight that was going to happen or something like that.
I honestly don't know what triggered me that day. But myself and the people with me are really glad it did. I think I might have caught view of a weapon while crossing the crowd and didn't consciously notice it but it kicked some sense of danger on me.
3. Hey, Deer
I used to just around country roads when I would feel stressed out or sad, just to get away and listen to music. One evening I was driving with my best friend in the car, and we were on a gravel road that has a huge hill. We were driving towards the sunset, but it was winter and the light was fading fast. As the car started down the hill, I had this moment where I thought to myself, "My brights should be on" so I flicked them on.
At the bottom of this super steep hill stood six deer on the road. I slammed on the brakes and the car turned sideways and skidded to a stop like 4 feet from the deer. Those stupid deer didn't even move, they just stared into the passenger side of my car and my best friend pointed at them and said, "Hey, deer." The car was fine, we were fine, and Bambi was all good. I don't drive around like that anymore.
4. Stranger Danger
It was 1995, I was 18, still living with my parents, and I was walking home from a friend's house at about 2:00 am in the middle of the summer. He only lived five or six blocks away, and we often hung out watching movies after I got off work. Usually I would drive to his house because we'd been out with other friends, but this night I had parked at home and we walked to his place.
There's not usually a lot of traffic between our houses, but this night I was about halfway home when a pickup truck drove by with 2 guys in the cab and 2 in the bed. I immediately felt like I was in danger. I saw the truck turn the corner, and I dove over some hedges in the closest yard I could find. I hid under them.
I saw the truck come back around the corner and slowly drive down the street. When it got to where I was hiding, I heard one of the guys say, "Where did he go?" and another responded that he didn't know. They kept driving, and I didn't see them again. I stayed hidden for a good 15 minutes before getting up and running the rest of the way home. I'm certain they would have jumped me if they found me.
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5. The Car Thief
When my husband and I were in college, we came home late one night after a long day and had to get up early the next day. We were both so tired, and he wanted to leave his backpack and computer in the car because we were going to be getting up and back into the car in a few hours. My gut feeling said absolutely not and I made him take his bag and computer.
When we came back down the next morning his car had been broken into.
6. Candy To The Rescue
When I was a young woman my husband and I lived on an army base. At the time, the base was wide open and many local people used it as a shortcut from one town to another. The base also had free base newspapers available at many places on base. One week the newspaper said that Facilities Engineers (base maintenance) were going to begin installing attic fans in our townhouses.
Sure enough, someone banged on my door later in the week and announced that he was there to install my attic fan. I was immediately suspicious—he was not part of the base. He looked dirty, had a scraggly beard, and paint-stained clothes. But mostly it was my dog's reaction. Candy was a husky-shepherd mix, so not a small dog.
Candy put herself between me and him as best she could, her hackles were up, and she was growling, that deep bass-in-the-chest growl that you feel more than hear. I asked to see a work order and ID. He said, "I don't need no stupid work order" and yanked open the screen door. It was latched, but those kinds of latches are meant to keep toddlers and dogs in, not grown men out. That's when Candy flew into action.
Candy roared and went for his throat. The guy jumped back and slammed the screen shut. I grabbed Candy, dragged her back and slammed and locked the door. I then ran to the back and slammed and locked that door. Next I called the MPs. They came out, verified that my street was not due to get attic fans for a couple of weeks.
They took down all the information I could give them, which wasn't much. I never heard anything back, so they probably never identified him. Two or three weeks later, the real installers came from Facilities Engineers, in uniform. They promptly produced work orders and ID. Candy looked at them and went back to playing with the baby.
I'm absolutely certain that she saved me.
7. Tsunami Dreams
Since my sister was five, she was always obsessed with tsunamis and would always ask my dad every night before she went to sleep if there would be a tsunami that night (we lived on a beach). Six years later, when our family was holidaying in Samoa, an earthquake struck at about 6 am. It was only a dull low rumble, but it went on for over a minute.
Everyone at the resort woke up and went outside for a few minutes then went back to bed. My sister, having been obsessed with tsunamis, ran down to look at the water and noticed the sea going out. She immediately told everyone what was happening, and made sure we all hid behind the cliff near the resort. She ended up saving a lot of lives that day, including my own.
8. The Feeling Found Her
Few years ago my best friend's brother texted me and asked if I had seen my friend or heard from her. She hadn't come home the day before. She had been depressed and suicidal before so everyone was worried. Her parents checked her bank account to see if it was used and she’d bought some booze the day before. She rarely drinks so this was very out of character.
They searched all night and decided to go to the local authorities and file her for missing. Around that time her brother texted me and right away I had a feeling I knew where she was. I grabbed my dogs and headed to the woods. There is this clearing with an old trailer where we used to let our dogs play and I saw her bike when I came around the corner.
I knew she was in there but I was too scared to look so I called her brother to come. He was there within five minutes. I don’t think he ever ran that hard and we found her together still breathing with a ton of booze bottles and pills laying around her. We called for an ambulance first then I called her parents. They just left the station and they took a ride with some officers to where we were.
She was in a coma for a few days with hypothermia. It was a very hard few weeks after that but she survived with no brain damage. If she was laying there a few more hours she would have been dead or her brain would have been damaged. I still don't know why I knew she was there, we hadn’t been there in years and she never talked about that place.
9. Bad Blood
I went to the hospital with shortness of breath and my heart racing. They did a chest x-ray, a blood test for clots, an ECG, and a few other tests but everything came back normal. After observing me overnight everything still looked good, oxygen saturation was perfect, my heart rate was still a bit elevated but nothing too crazy, and it seemed that it was likely leftover symptoms from a bad virus that I'd had a week or so earlier.
The ER doctor asks me how I would feel if they sent me home and I just had a bad feeling about it all. I told him as such and that I had no real basis for it except that I just felt off about it. He said fair enough, let's try one more test and if that comes back negative then we'll send you up to General Medicine and see if they can track something down.
That test was a VQ scan. When I saw the results, I felt a chill run down my spine. Despite all other tests showing no results for blood clots, I actually had a whole bunch of them in both lungs. I ended up with a diagnosis of unprovoked bilateral pulmonary embolisms and am now on blood thinners for life. Super grateful both for the bad feeling and the ER doctor who was willing to listen to it!
10. Wary Of Uncle
Growing up, I was always wary of my uncle on my dad's side of the family (not blood-related). Even as a young child, I just knew that I didn't like being around him. He never gave me any reason to feel this way, and I never voiced it to anyone. As I grew older, my family moved away and I saw less of him, but anytime my extended family met for holidays I would see him and avoid him.
A couple years down the track, I was around 12 or 13 when my parents sat me and my older brother down and told us that my cousin (my uncle's daughter) had been abused by him from a young age. This had all come to light when my aunt caught it happening (later found out he did the same to her too). Really wish my gut feeling hadn't been right about that one.
11. An Electric Feeling
When my science teacher was a teenager, she was standing near some lights at a pedestrian crossing with her and her friend. Very chill, but out of nowhere, she had this gut feeling that both of them had to move. They moved just a couple of meters away, and the next moment a car had hit another car, which then hit one of the street electricity utility poles. It fell and exploded exactly where they were standing, just a moment ago.
That gut feeling of moving away saved both of their lives.
12. Creepy Teacher
When I was a kid I had this teacher—I think in grade three—who was really creepy towards all of us girls. We would notice him looking at girls' butts or down their shirts. He was really weird and always found a reason to make girls stay after class for whatever. He gave me a really terrible feeling that I had never gotten from someone before. I never got too close to him and always made sure I wasn’t in his room alone.
I’m 25 now and I found out that he just got taken into custody last year for having dirty pictures and videos with kids in them. He was also caught with a hidden camera in his pen that he would take pictures down girls' shirts with. So creepy. Can’t imagine the amount of videos and pics this man has. He was an older man when he taught me in grade three and just got caught last year.
13. Kitty Surprise
We already had two cats when my mother brought home a stray kitten. She couldn't bear to know it was going to go hungry. A few years later and we now have five dachshunds, and the kitten is a very cute and healthy cat. One day I go outside to feed the dogs. One of them was sitting by the little doghouse, two were just sniffing about idly, one was laying in the sun and the other was missing but probably just in the doghouse.
I fill their bowls, go back inside... and then immediately stop in my tracks the moment the door closed. Something didn't feel right. I don't know if it was because specifically the matriarch of these dachshunds was sitting by the doghouse, or if it was because she was sitting directly in front the doghouse entryway like they never do, or if maybe I just unconsciously noticed how attentive this normally scatterbrained dog was being, but I rush outside and make eye contact with her.
She moves over and sits facing the entrance and up-nods her head/nose which she's been trained to do when she is pointing to something that needs our attention. The cat had kittens! It was surprising because she never had a span of noisy weeks when she was in heat, we always assumed she was spayed, and she carried three kittens to term without anyone noticing despite her being fed and given the same amount of attention as the dogs got.
And the mom of these four dogs knew if her children were allowed near them, they'd get eaten, so she was keeping guard.
4. Parking Lot Panic
I stopped at Home Depot to pick up only one item so I knew it was going to be a quick trip. I’m in the store and notice I’m pretty much the only girl in there besides employees. I couldn’t find what I was looking for and had to ask multiple employees before I found it. Eventually I found what I needed and I headed to the checkout.
As I’m heading out to my car, I notice a shady dude standing against a tree on one side of my car. On the other side of my car is another shady guy sticking his arm outside of his car window. When I walked out they both turned and stared at me. My heart dropped, I started to feel queasy, and my mind instantly knew to turn around and go inside.
I stood there shaking at the front of the store until I could get the courage to ask an employee to walk me to my car. As soon as they saw me walking out with an employee, the guy standing by the tree walked around my car and into the driver's side of the car parked next to me. To this day I swear I was a short walk away from being kidnapped.
15. For Good Measure
When I was 10, I was learning violin from an instructor at my local music shop. I got the weirdest feeling from him even though he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. I wanted to vomit every time I looked at him, especially his hands. After four lessons I told my parents that I had a terrible feeling about him and I never wanted to go back.
Luckily, they listened and didn’t make me ever go to him again. A few years later, we learned the awful truth. I was right to be scared. He was arrested for assaulting multiple students. I have no idea how I knew something was off. He never did or said anything but I just felt it.
16. Non-Security Alarms
I was a 20-year-old student, alone in my apartment one evening. I was expecting the cable guy so when I heard a knock at the door I opened it. I saw an older man that definitely was not the cable guy as he did not have a uniform on. I asked him what he wanted. He said he was going around the apartments installing security alarms.
Right away I knew this guy was dangerous and I couldn't trust him. I told him that it was a bad time and that my roommate was on the phone long distance (when long distance was expensive) with her parents and was going through some personal stuff. She was not there but I did not want him to think I was alone. He asked where she was.
That’s when I just closed the door in his face and said not a good time. I called my landlord the next morning and asked her about installing security alarms. She really had no idea what I was talking about. She was shocked at what I told her and said she hadn’t authorized any installation of any alarm at all. She assured me she would never do that without talking to me first.
Women, if you ever get into a situation where it looks like you are alone, really try to convince the person that is making you feel uneasy that you are not alone. Another time when I was young walking home in the dark and two men stopped their car and started saying lewd things to me. I just walked up to a house and knocked on the door and they drove off quickly. Way more vulnerable when you are alone.
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17. The Welcome Mat
I woke up from a deep sleep at like 2 am during a winter storm; something wasn't right...I immediately went looking for my senior dog and couldn't find her anywhere in the house. My roommates had a tendency to let her out for a walk and forget about her, closing the door. I ran to the front of the house and found her laying on the welcome mat, she was hardly breathing and covered in snow.
She had been outside alone for at the very least five hours. I got her inside and warmed her up. Thankfully, she was okay, but if she'd been out all night, she would have been terribly hurt if not dead. I moved out shortly after.
18. Pregnancy Scare
When I was pregnant for the first time, something just felt off. I knew from the very beginning it wasn't going to end well. A few weeks later, I started cramping and spotting, which can be normal in early pregnancy. I ended up going to the ER. They couldn't find any evidence of a pregnancy in my uterus and decided it was a missed miscarriage, and wanted to send me home.
But, that gut feeling that something was very wrong was still there, and I listened to it. I demanded that I be seen by my OB who was head of obstetrics at that hospital and wouldn't leave until he saw me. He had me in emergency surgery 4 hours after he came to examine me to remove my ruptured fallopian tube and stop the internal bleeding. Had I not listened to my gut, I'd be dead.
19. Security Guardian Angel
When I was in college, I lived in a sketchy part of Chicago. I liked to take late-night strolls, even when I was living in that neighborhood as a 20-year-old woman. Yeah, I know. Pretty dumb of me. One night, I was feeling stressed out so I embarked on one of my late-night strolls. I was walking along a somewhat busy road. Cars were zooming past me. Pretty normal.
I wasn't paying much attention because I was too wrapped up in whatever was stressing me out that night. Suddenly, a chill shot up my spine. Hypervigilance washed over me and I became more alert than I had ever been. Something was wrong. Someone was watching me. I quickly spotted a car. It was driving in the opposite direction, a little slower than usual. It was too dark for me to see anyone inside the car, and the car was pretty unassuming. But I still knew something was off.
They were watching me. I just knew. The car drove past me and then made a U-turn. Now it was right behind me, creeping along the curb. Luckily, there was a convenience store a few blocks ahead. I started walking faster, and the car eventually sped past me and disappeared into a corner. I somehow knew I wasn't safe yet, so I still sprinted to the store.
I told the security guard what happened, and we both went outside. The car was parked up the street, about 50-100 feet away. The security guard was a big guy who looked intimidating. He marched toward the car, and the car immediately backed up, made a U-turn, and then booked it out of there. The security guard called the cops, and they drove me home.
I never took a late-night stroll again. My gut made me more alert, but it was really the security guard who saved my life. I'm positive that if he wasn't there that night, something bad would've happened to me. I wish I could find that security guard to thank him.
20. Dog Gone Lucky
It was my first year in college and within a year of getting my first dog that was my own—like not a family dog. I would constantly use my dog as an excuse to avoid things I didn’t want to do. “Oh sorry I have to break my dog.” “Oh she has to go to the vet today.” It was a great way to put off doing homework and stuff.
I was in class and it was right before an important test. Normally I wouldn’t want to stay but I knew I had to to get ready for the exam. But something was telling me I had to go home. I stayed until the very second the class let out and ran to my car. I drove like a maniac to my house. When I got there I was totally shocked.
My house had been broken into. My valuables were stolen and the kennel which my dog was in was flipped and thrown across the room. I should have gone home earlier but the officers who later found those responsible said they were very dangerous and lucky my dog wasn’t further harmed.
21. Tough Cook
Last year, December 1. I had slept for almost a week trying to fight what I thought was the flu. I woke up and had a gut feeling telling me that something wasn't right with me. I called my parents to tell them, and then cabbed myself to the emergency room. The staff took blood and ran tests on me for 8 hours, then discharged me and sent me home.
I got a call the next morning asking me to come back because they found something in my blood: Bacteremia and Endocarditis. I was put on penicillin immediately, for two months. But I kept feeling like there was something wrong. I went for a specialized test on December 21, and woke up to the doctors telling me I need surgery as soon as possible. They’re trying to find a surgical team, earliest is the 24.
I go in and while they’re operating, I have an ascending aortic aneurysm and it caused an aortic dissection. They’re able to fix it. I’ve got a synthetic valve in there now. But that's not even the scariest part: I work in a restaurant kitchen, just before the start of the holiday season. Normally, cooks will tough it out and just work. Most think they'll get better soon.
I’m told that if I had done that, I more than likely would have died before my birthday and they would have found out about the aneurysm during the autopsy. That still sends freaking chills down my spine.
22. Listen To The Voice In Your Head
I was driving down the road on a normal day and I suddenly heard a voice in my head. It was my own voice and it said as clear as a bell: “They can’t see you and will hit you”. Literally 30 seconds later a girl pulled out when my car was hidden behind a big mall sign. When I saw her pull out I was like “omg this is it!” but was able to hit the brakes in time.
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23. Yank Rescue
I was walking out of a grocery store when I saw this kid about to cross the road. Something came over me and I yanked him back onto the sidewalk. Not even a second later a truck came flying past. He was probably around 7 years old.
24. Gas Station Situation
I was stopped to get gas at a smaller station off a pretty main highway just outside town. I’d gotten out and paid, then put the gas nozzle in my car. As I was standing there, a large black SUV with very tinted windows pulled up, in front of my car, and a bigger dude leaned out with something in his hand. He asks if I could give him cash for his gold or something like that.
When I said no, he tore off down the highway, full speed. My best guess is that if I had walked over to talk to him, there would've been guys in the back ready to grab me and cart me off who knows where. The weirdest thing is that it was mid-day with plenty of other people at the pump. And I'm a 20s, larger white dude. But I can't imagine what else it would be.
25. The Fast Lane
There's a very fun road in Germany where you drive at 50 or 60 clicks along smooth tight turns and little rolling hills. I go there a lot to relax. On this particular day, something like wheat was growing and it was high. I couldn't see around the corners, but I knew the road well and was staying in my lane. I was going fast, and smiling.
About halfway in, I heard a voice in my head as clear as if the speaker were sitting next to me and it said, “You need to slow down.” It was startling and I braked immediately. Two seconds later I come through one of the turns and into the butt end of a huge truck taking up both lanes and moving slowly. I barely stopped in time. Those extra two seconds of brake time saved a Volvo at least, but I'm pretty sure they saved my life too.
26. He Didn’t Deliver
I had a gut feeling twice and it was while I was delivering pizza to shady neighborhoods. For some reason, things didn't feel right. In both cases I trusted my instincts and booked it. I wasn’t about to risk my life for a couple of pizzas worth 20 bucks. I didn’t deliver the pizzas and thought I would be in big trouble. Both times, no one ever called back to ask about their food never arriving. That's all the proof I need.
27. Icy Scandinavian Roads
Back in 2011, my dad and I were driving down the country for New Year’s Eve. Suddenly he goes quiet, kind of starts breathing slow and steady, and tells me to look up the road. He was so calm and focused. I look up and see a car spinning in the middle of the freeway ramping up speed and knocking cars off the road.
This is in Scandinavia in the winter, and we were pretty much on ice. I imagine the driver of that car hoping, just hoping. So, my dad proceeds to accelerate towards the guy spinning, which didn’t even occur to me was weird. He was just so calm, which made me calm. The car hits us on my dad’s side, half a second earlier my dad turned slightly right, which was just enough for the car to push us out of the road and completely safe into a snow bank.
I realized a bit later that a lamppost on that same side we flew off to had crushed the back-right side of our car, just missing the angle that would’ve hit me. Years later I realized the reason my dad sped up the vehicle. Getting hit by that car was a question of when, not if, and if he had not accelerated, that lamp post would’ve been my death.
28. They Were Russian After Us
There was one situation when I was walking home with my girlfriend. We were around 20 years old. And inebriated of course. Anyway, we were walking back to our place and the shortest path was to go through some small woods which were kind of remote and not used very often. I saw two middle aged men walking towards us and as they passed us I heard them speaking Russian (or another similar language which I don't speak).
Something in that situation still got me thinking that they were speaking about us. And shortly after I turned around and I noticed they were walking the same direction as us. Not running, but pretty shady all of a sudden to change direction. I made a quick decision and told my girlfriend that after the next corner we were going to do something to get rid of them.
So when we turned the corner they couldn't see us for a moment and we went through some trees because I knew the other side had more street lights and more people possibly walking there too. We went through and for a moment I thought we'd lost them. But then, because I was constantly checking behind I noticed they took that path too.
Still, not running but no one would take that path normally. Anyway, we finally got back to civilization and these dudes were following us for like three kilometers while we were talking. It was so weird and so obvious they were following us. Then finally we made it to one gas station where I knew one of my friends was working as a guard so he then gave us a ride home.
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29. A Friend Indeed
I went out with my best friend on New Year’s last year, and was having drinks with her friends when I realized I was out of smokes. I left to grab a pack, and ended up talking to a homeless guy for a while. When I went over to the entrance of the bar, my friend was outside and said something mean to me for no reason and walked off. I was confused so I decided it would be good if I took a walk to let her cool off and then figure out what she was upset about.
I was going to walk down the street for a bit but something told me to turn left, walking behind the bar and then turning to the side of the bar when I see a girl laying down on the sidewalk and people walking by her. As I'm walking over to help, I realize it’s my friend and she's not conscious. She was probably drugged while I was getting smokes and who knows what would've happened if I hadn't decided to go that way.
30. Red Flag Boyfriend
It started out as a gut feeling when I felt that something was off about my Mom's boyfriend. Once I felt this way, I started to notice the red flags. The first one was the way my dog reacted to him. Even to this day he's the only person my dog flat out didn't like. I think he might have even kicked him at one point when we weren't around.
The second major red flag I noticed was when his two daughters came over. They were six and eight years old at the time. I thought it was weird that they rarely wanted to spend time with their own father. They seemed to prefer hanging out with my Mom instead. It almost felt like—to me anyway—they were trying to avoid him.
I ended up bringing my concerns to my Mom. That was when she started to notice things too. She eventually broke it off with him. A few months later she gets contacted by an investigator, and what he tells her is absolutely shocking: Apparently, the boyfriend had been caught trying to sleep with his current girlfriend's daughter so they wanted to get a statement from Mom.
I'm just glad he got caught and it sounds like he'll be locked away for quite some time. I guess nothing bad happened when he was with my mom because she’s the only woman in the house. I don't think the dude was trying to come after my brother or I—he must have prefered girls. Plus, we're both bigger than the man too.
31. Giant Bunsen Burner
I was sitting on one of those metal cylindrical electricity boxes outside my house when there was a blackout. Electricity was slightly flickering in my house, and no other houses had a blackout. I looked down at what I was sitting on and I was like: "Uh maybe this is the source of the problem?" I stood up and stepped away from it, and 2 seconds later it freaking BLEW UP.
Like a pillar of flame shot out and above it for almost a full minute. It was basically a gigantic Bunsen burner and I was a few seconds short of physically getting fried.
32. Precious Picture
When I was a kid, I was doing my first ever deep clean of my bedroom. You know, getting rid of old clothes and toys and such. While cleaning out my closet, I found an old picture cut out from the local newspaper of Lyndon Johnson visiting my parent's home town. The picture was taken outside with some locals in the background.
I was going to throw the picture away, but suddenly got the strongest feeling not to do it, so I set it aside. Later I showed it to my mom and asked her about it. She freaked out and showed my grandma, who also freaked out. It turns out one of the locals in the background of the picture was my grandpa. He’d passed away when my mom was 12.
That picture was one of only a handful we had of him. I had never seen a picture of him before this. I was so glad I didn't throw that clipping away
33. Crummy Co-worker
I was with a co-worker. He had lied to me about inviting me to a family party of his. When I showed up, it was just him and I, and we went to a bar. I rolled my eyes and just thought I could clench my teeth through it. He knew the owner of the bar, and got me drinks (I was only 20 at the time, he was at least a decade older). I started pouring out the drinks when the dude was shooting pool because I didn't want to be tipsy/drunk while dealing with him. Looking back, this decision saved me from a horrific fate.
I told him I wanted to go home, but he talked me into taking him home first. So, I followed the directions he gave me and I pulled into a hookah bar parking lot instead. He started getting really aggressive and trying to kiss me. I kept pushing him off. I was still trying to be polite but firm and telling him to stop. That's when I noticed the group of guys around my car, talking to my coworker in my car in another language. He then opened my car door, got out, and proceeded to grab me by the hair to try to pull me out of my car, the other guys gathering around.
I had the mind to lock my door when I noticed the other guys. I also had put my car in reverse. So, when he grabbed my hair, I let off the brake and my car started rolling back so he let go of me. It was terrifying. I told our boss the next day and he quit when our boss asked him about it.
34. Three Keys To Safety
I had an experience while living in London. I worked in hospitality which often meant I didn't get home until very late in a suburb called Seven Sisters which wasn't the safest. I get off the tube and start walking back to my place at about two am and notice there are three very large men following me. I couldn't explain it but I started getting a weird feeling.
So I tested it out by slowing down and speeding up my walking pace. They would match it every single time. I hadn't been living in this place very long and had three keys: one for the front door, one for the back door and one for my room. Being a new place I didn't yet have a feeling for which key was for which door. So as I got close to my place I started panicking.
When I got to my front door the first key I tried didn't work. I look back and see the guys have opened the little gate to my small front yard garden and are on my property walking towards me. I try the second key, it unlocks the front door. I close it, lock it again and collapse to my knees to look through the mail slot.
I see the three guys standing there talking amongst themselves for about three minutes before they take off. I often ask myself what they would have done to me if it had been the third key that unlocks my front door.
35. Creepy Dad
When I was 10, I went to the beach with my older sister, her friends, and their parents. They had a van that was open in the back (think white creepy van), no seats. The other friends of my sister’s friends took turns sitting on the father's lap when he asked if they wanted to steer the van. He then asked me and my gut said, "No! This man is creepy as heck." The look in his eyes sent shivers down my spine.
Once we got to the beach, I forgot all about the creepy dad and focused on fun. Fast forward several months later, and my sister's friends asked if my sister wanted to sleepover. She refused and my mom and I were baffled as to why she didn't want to go. We kept encouraging her to. Soon she broke down in tears and told us that one night their father had touched her.
The van incident and feelings came flying back to me. I wish I had not forgotten my gut feeling and shared it with my mother and sister before anything happened to my sister. Sometimes I still feel guilty over it. That was over 30 years ago. I don't remember what happened to the guy. I just remember a state vehicle at my house a lot afterwards. No one ever talked about it again and I never asked.
36. An Itch She Couldn’t Scratch
I spent two years with an itch that seemed to have no reason. My inner hypochondriac gut told me that it was cancer. I did some further research and confirmed it. I told several doctors for two years that I had lymphoma. But no one would listen to me. It turns out I was right, but they didn’t figure it out until I was stage four advanced.
Luckily, I’m in remission now. But the moral of the story is don’t give up. If you know something is wrong, push for answers. All the forums told me to just push for chest scans. And if I had, I wouldn’t have had to go through so much chemo. The doctors started to try to convince me I was crazy. That it was all in my head and I started to believe them. So don’t let that happen!
37. Sweeney Todd Lives!
I was walking to the barbershop, and for some reason, everything felt off. I ignored the feeling, but every step I took just made me feel like something wasn't right, so I decided to go grab some food and come back. While I was eating, I saw police cars and ambulances driving to around where I was before, it turns out there was a murder. Now I always listen to my gut feeling.
38. Not So Happy Thanksgiving
I dated a guy for three and a half years. He joined the Army and a few months later a girl at his base made a Thanksgiving post about being thankful. She tagged my boyfriend and a ton of other people in it. I pestered him about her a few times but he was very adamant about her just being a friend. Five months later, he made the most upsetting confession.
The guy admits that not only was he seeing this girl, she was also pregnant. To make matters worse he let me know this devastating news with a meme. It turns out he’d been cheating on me for nine months by the time he got her pregnant. He admitted to that. So my gut instinct was absolutely right. In her Facebook post, she had mentioned a boyfriend and my (ex)bf had never mentioned her before.
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39. Dream Job
I was offered a dream job at almost double my salary in a different city. It was only 2 hours away, but something told me not to take it. I had a number of people tell me I would never have another opportunity like this, and my fear of leaving my hometown was holding me back. Two months after I turned it down, that division of the company was sold, and everyone in that department lost their job. I’d have been stuck in a new city with no friends or family nearby, and no job prospects.
40. Three Times Lucky
Three stories come to mind. I was living in Seattle and running to catch a bus. I was just about to catch it and suddenly I thought “stop” and my body just stopped. I let the bus go. I was angry that I missed the bus, but it was a good thing I did. Two stops after mine, a guy got on the bus and shot the driver. The bus went off a bridge and landed on an apartment building. A couple of people perished.
The second time, I was walking to the bus stop again. Just like before the body voice said very loudly in my head: “stop”. I stopped, backed up a bit and then watched in horror. Right in front of me a car got t-boned, ping ponged off of other cars then came to rest where I would have been standing if I would have kept walking.
Last time it happened was not long ago. I now live in Toronto. I was going to head out to hit the store and Michael's for stuff. I walked yet again to the bus stop. Once I got there, the body voice said, "Not today, go home" So I went home. My husband calls about 15-20 minutes later to frantically ask where I was. I told him that the voice said go home.
It turns out an Incel rented a van and drove down the sidewalk in front of where I was supposed to be, about when I would have been there. Ten people lost their lives and 16 were injured.
The body voice must always be listened to.
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41. Translation Please
Some people I knew in high school were bar hopping. They were all underage and traveling to a bar about 45 minutes away. All of a sudden, one of them got a really bad feeling and started panicking. His friends made fun of him and wouldn’t let him out of the car, but it got so bad they had to dump him in this small town in the middle of nowhere. He used a payphone and called a cab home.
The next morning, he saw that his friends had been in a car accident, obviously due to drunk driving. Most of the friends died, one survived with a severe brain injury. His life was saved all because of a gut feeling. Sometimes he has survivor’s guilt now.
42. Frozen Smile
I had been living and working in Korea, and one day I was coming up out of a subway station and saw a man talking to another foreign woman. She had that polite, frozen smile on her face—the why-is-this-guy-talking-to-me smile. I walked up to her, linked my arm with hers, and said "Hey, Sarah! There you are! Are you ready to go?" And just started walking.
The guy followed us, but I sped up, and made an abrupt turn into a coffee shop. We hid, and I saw him walk past, still looking for her. We ended up getting coffee and chatting for a bit, and I found out that he had followed her off the train, and had been getting increasingly aggressive for the last ten minutes. I don't know what might have happened, but I'm really glad I interfered!!
43. An Alarming Thought
When I was 6, my brother (8 at the time) and I would go to my grandma’s house while our mom worked late some nights. Anyway, one day I was just randomly thinking about fire alarms. I don't know what caused me to think about them but after I started, I couldn't stop. I have ADHD and this super focus thing, so whenever I'm thinking about something as simple as fire alarms it consumes my mind.
I asked my grandma and she said she hadn't tested hers in a while. Just for kicks she did, and sure enough the batteries were dead. She replaced the batteries and made sure they worked. The VERY next morning her house caught on fire while she was asleep. If she didn't hear the fire alarms, she would've been trapped in her room on the second story without a phone or anyway to contact help. She most likely would've died. I always make sure fire detectors/alarms work in my house now.
44. A Bad Feeling In The ER
I was a medical student at the time—I’m now a resident. I was working at the ER and I noticed a patient who had a pretty bad injury to her face. She was with a sketchy looking guy who was not related to her. I had a really bad feeling about the situation. She wasn't my patient, but I brought my gut feeling up to her doctor.
The doctor made up some excuse to talk to the patient alone. It turns out the guy was a human trafficker. You see, the city my school was in is a hub for human trafficking. I never talked to the woman myself, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got from looking at her and the man she was with. The doctor got the woman away from the guy and to a safe place.
45. Sixth Sense
My boyfriend and I were visiting friends for a week in Phoenix. We girls were lounging at the pool while the guys were flexing their grilling skills. My boyfriend paused a moment, stood very still then told me to go get dressed, we had to go. Right now. I wanted to fuss but something told me not to. We drove straight through to San Antonio right to his parents very rural house (this was before cell phones and they didn’t have a landline within a half-mile).
Seconds before we arrived, his little sister had jumped off of a rain barrel and landed on a metal spike that went straight up through her foot and into her leg. His dad was at work so there was no car available there. She was bleeding like crazy and his mother had just walked out and found her. I don’t know what spoke to him in Phoenix, but it would have been all bad if we had not arrived exactly when we did.
46. Creep Vibe Was Right
I had a work friend who used to come over to play Xbox once in a while. I liked the guy even though I knew he was a bit odd. He was really good at Call of Duty though, but unfortunately he used to tell some tall tales that everyone knew were not true. Well, my wife, who was only my girlfriend back then, always got a creep vibe from him. And boy, did she end up being right.
She said he looked at her with so much anger and malice but never indicated any specific action that made her uncomfortable. After a while I stopped hanging out with the friend since he wasn’t coming to town as much for work. Fast forward a few years and another mutual friend calls me to say the Xbox friend was taken down by law enforcement, unfortunately only after he had already shot his neighbor and his wife. Crazy.
47. Home Horror
I was an unpopular kid, and I always wanted to go on sleepovers but it rarely happened. In 6th or 7th grade I get invited to this girl’s house for a birthday party. I am friendly with her but not close. I go to her house and I feel weird right away. Her mom and stepdad were sitting in the living room smoking, but being perfectly friendly.
The whole night, I couldn’t shake this feeling of oppressiveness, despair, and danger. I spent the evening keeping my guard up and keeping an eye out for the entire family, without any idea why. At night the girl begs me to spend the night. Even though it hurt to say no when I could tell she was desperate, I lied and told her my parents wouldn’t let me, when they said over the phone they would.
A couple of months later, a student told me she had left the school and moved because her stepfather would touch her at night in her bed. I think of her often, and hope she wasn’t hurt that night, and I hope she’s doing better - but I’m glad I got out.
48. Missing Roommate
I advertised a room on our national buy and sell page. A guy replies and we meet a few times. Really nice French guy, great English, stable job and into the outdoors. He moves in on the Saturday. We talk over the next few days for no more than five minutes in passing around the house during the day. By the next weekend, I had not seen or heard from him.
His door was always shut so I thought he was working nights and we just didn't sync up. I joked with my partner that he was a drug addict and was dead, but we both laughed it off. I mean, what are the chances? On Sunday evening I followed through with my gut that something wasn't right and knocked on his door. Worst case he's asleep and I wake him. Best case, he's not there.
It turns out he’d committed suicide six days after moving in. The authorities estimate he had been cold for three days. He had been suffering from serious depression and planned it all out. I felt so guilty for not seeing it but I barely knew him. Total of maybe 10 minutes talking total.
49. Plot Armor
About 10 years ago, I was working security at a site about 50 miles from home. I got off at midnight, and didn't bother to change out of my uniform because I was only going to stop for gas. Two stations in the town I was working in were open after midnight, but it slipped my mind as I drove past the first one. Pulled into the other (same brand, same gas price) and just didn't like something about it. There was nobody else around but the clerk that I could see, but I decided to go back to the other one.
I topped off and headed back out of town, and I get close to the station that had creeped me out again. Three city cop cars, two deputies and a state trooper are outside blocking the road with guns drawn. Turns out a city cop walked in on a robbery. Dude put a bullet in his vest, and the store owner knocked the robber out cold with a bat before the cop could recover enough to get his gun out.
That would have been me, in a uniform with a nice shiny badge, but no body armor.
50. Not Lost In Translation
My friend and I were out clubbing and as we were leaving the club I noticed there was a super inebriated girl sitting outside. My friend and I are both female so we decided it would be okay to approach her and ask her if she was okay and if she needed any help. It turns out her English wasn't great so she didn't really understand what we were saying.
The girl motioned with her hands for us to go away. I walked up to the bouncer and asked him to keep an eye on her and make sure she gets home safe. He nodded so my friend and I started walking to the McDonald's close by the club. We were about five minutes into the walk and I get a strange urge to look back behind me.
I look and see the same woman from outside the club, but now she is surrounded by two men. I instantly knew that she didn't know the two men and that she was not comfortable. I stopped in my tracks and told my friend to wait. I then ran to the girl, grabbed her hand and walked her back to where my friend was waiting.
We ended up buying her a meal at Mcdonald's and even though there was a language barrier she thanked us profusely. We then waited for her friend to pick her up. I'm really glad I interfered!
51. A Daughter’s Intuition
We had all started to walk around the development, when my mother, after about 50-75 meters from the house said, "I am going to go back and check on dad." I went with her, and I nearly witnessed my grandfather die. He was on the chair, conscious, but unable to move or talk... just looking at my mother with bulging eyes. She called 9-1-1 once, then twice when she felt that they were running late.
The ambulance came, got him on the stretcher, but it was too wide to fit out the door. We ended up tearing the door frame off to get him out. Because he was conscious, he actually remembers the ride to the hospital. He told us later that he heard the driver or someone say, there is not a chance that this guy lives. That was when I was around six years old. He is still alive to this day, more than a decade later.
At my mother’s funeral, part of his speech was about how, without my mother’s actions, he would not have been able to spend time with her during her final years of life. And for that, he is eternally grateful.
52. A Stroke Of Luck
Back when I was about 10 or 11 I asked my mother if we could take my grandmother out to lunch. My mother was kind of against it for some unknown reason, but I kept insisting that I really wanted to see my grandmother and that she would want to go to lunch that day. Eventually my mother agreed and we took grandmother to the mall.
While we were out at the mall after getting lunch with my grandmother, something strange started to happen: she started slurring her speech and became extremely confused. My mom noticed what was going on and got her to the hospital within 20 or 30 minutes. She was having a stroke. Doctors said they were able to stop the stroke and she came out of it basically the same as she was before.
Couple days after the fact, my mom told me I had basically saved my grandmother's life by making sure we went out to lunch with her that day.
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53. The Rollercoaster
I'm afraid of rollercoasters (mostly heights but they go hand in hand). My friends and I went to a theme park, and went on a rollercoaster that was in darkness and went underground. I rode it once, sitting in the back, and really enjoyed it surprisingly. When we reached the start again, there was no line (as it was the end of the day) so they asked if we wanted a final go before they shut down.
Something in my gut told me not to go on, so despite my friends nagging, I didn't and waited with the bags. When my friends got off the ride, they were white as a sheet. About 3/4 of the way through the ride, there's a big drop then it goes fast and just before that, my friend in the back's bar had risen up. Apparently, they had to grip onto her for the rest of the ride while trying to push the bar back down.
54. Gut Trusting Saves Life
I hadn't spoken to a certain friend for a couple weeks but got a gut feeling to contact and talk to her at a certain moment. I immediately messaged her (That's how we always talk). We talked for a couple hours and into the night. A month later, out of the blue she just messages me "Thank you." I asked her why she's thanking me.
She said she was contemplating suicide on the day I got my gut feeling and had contacted her. Because she got to talk to someone on that specific day, she dropped the idea and hasn't attempted it again ever since.
55. Perfect Timing
My aunt told me a story about my dad (who greatly dislikes his sister and is an all-around jerk 98% of the time) calling her out of the blue one night while she was in college. She answered, he said he didn't know why but he had this urge to call her, to make sure she was okay. She told him she was fine and thanked him for calling to check on her. She never told anyone else except me, and hopefully a therapist or two, but she was holding the bottle of pills and she was planning to take them all right when he called her.
Twenty-some years later and she's very happy with her decision to live.
56. Near Abduction
When I was a young kid back in the 80's I was playing on my front lawn when this van pulled up on the road and the sliding door opened. A guy about 19-20 aggressively waved at me through the van window to come to the van. I immediately knew something wasn't right so I ran inside and told my parents. Of course they freaked out.
My parents went running outside but the guy and the van were gone. Stranger danger wasn't really a thing back then and I had no idea what an abduction was at the time. But looking back on it, my life could've ended that day had I chose to go over to the van. I often wondered after that day if they ever did get a kid to get into their van.
57. The Station Wagon
I was 15 and my mom dropped me off at McDonald’s to get breakfast while she went across the street to get Starbucks. It was a shopping mall in suburbia and we were on the way to pick up a new kitten a few hours away. Instead of walking the 100 yards to my mom, I sat outside waiting for her to pick me up. Teenagers, I guess.
As I’m standing there a guy in an old station wagon with two kids in the back starts talking to me. He asks me where I’m going and I say whatever town it was. He says he’s going there too with his kids and asks if I want to come. I tell him no, that my mom is across the street and he comes closer. My gut is saying something is off so I see a random woman walk out of Starbucks and I point to her and say that’s my mom right there. He freaked out and left really quick. I still remember those two kids in the backseat. They looked so off. I wonder to this day if they are okay.
58. Final Farewell
Last year, I was staying up late watching TV. My mom had been battling stage four metastatic breast cancer for a while. That night, she walked downstairs and just sat there with me until I decided to go to bed. I looked at her and in my heart I knew she was close to leaving. So I said goodnight. And she said goodbye, which confused me.
Until the next morning when my dad woke me up and told me she had passed away overnight. It still makes me wonder how we both knew.
59. A Drink at the Club
I normally go to the club with my husband. He was out of town but I had friends that said they'd be out. My club has always been a very safe club, but the area it’s in has had its ups and downs, because drinking and a bunch of clubs in a small area comes with drunks and ne'er-do-wells of all kinds. I parked on the street two blocks down from the bar.
The block itself was dark but the next block up was very brightly lit thanks to a big-name hotel. Basically, it was a straight shot from my car to the club, with one section of darkness. The MOMENT I got into the building I knew something was wrong but I couldn't put my finger on it. First, none of my friends showed up so I'm alone. Then, the vibe was seriously off. Some dude kept trying to buy me a drink that I kept turning down.
He was so insistent, so eventually, I said I'd have a water because it comes in a sealed bottle. Dude comes back with the type of glass that mixed drinks usually come in. The moment he gives it to me he leaves and I don't see him again for the rest of the night. The "water" went straight down the bathroom sink. My alarm bells were going off so I decided to get out of there.
I left the bar and THE MOMENT I crossed the street, this voice in my head says, "You messed up! Get your keys out and get ready!" I'm full-blown panicking at this point. And when I got to my car door, I learned that my instincts were completely right. As soon as I get my door open another car pulls up and slides into the spot directly behind mine.
I hit the door locks and start to back up. In my rearview mirror, I see the torso of some guy jump out and head toward my passenger door. I'm already pulling out of the parking spot but I could see his tensed-up arm and closed fist just outside my passenger window. As I sped down the highway in the most deafening silence I've ever experienced, I tried to understand what just happened.
It took me a bit to put the pieces together but I THINK the drink dude was spiking drinks and the car dude was picking up. The more I think about it the more I get the feeling that it was a trafficking operation. If I had been two seconds slower for any reason, I can only imagine how that night would have ended.
60. Big Regrets
It was one of my last weekends studying abroad in Costa Rica. My classmate wanted to go out drinking and dancing with a group of students. But we all said that we were too tired. My friend convinced me to go as it was one of the last times we would get to. I didn’t feel right the entire time I was getting ready. Just a terrible gut feeling.
As I was walking to the bus stop to meet him, a huge wave of fear rushed over me and I thought “I’m going to be robbed tonight”. I wanted to turn around, but my friend saw me at the moment and we just continued on. We got kidnapped and robbed that night, and it was terrifying. I will never ever not listen and react to my gut feelings again.
61. Jungle Silence
I was in the Amazon as the end to a 3-month solo trip around Latin America. I wanted to enjoy one last walk through the jungle before leaving, so I left the lodge around 8am to walk down to a small river nearby. I stop and close my eyes to listen to the sounds as the jungle is super loud with crickets, birds, insects, etc. Almost immediately I got a weird feeling and felt really uncomfortable—which was weird because up until then I'd only felt peaceful and happy.
When I opened my eyes, I realized everything had gone completely quiet which was definitely NOT normal and not something I had experienced in other rain forests I'd been to. It was bizarre. I immediately felt that I had to leave and fast. After I dipped and got back to the jungle lodge, I told the tour guide what happened and he said it usually only gets quiet when there is a big predator close by—thanks, but no thanks!
62. Saved By A Battery
Well it was a gut feeling I ignored. I was getting ready to go meet a friend at a local bar, some band was playing there. I had this feeling that I should stay home, but all my buddies were already there. I go to start my truck and it won’t turn over. Battery problem! I used my jumper box, but turns out the battery wasn't charged. So I ended up staying home.
The next day I found out the place had been the victim of a drive by shooting! A couple of people were actually injured. Anyways that morning I still had to fix my truck. So I jump in the stupid thing and it starts right up! Like nothing had happened I always think about that night and how something made me stay home.
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63. A Certain Smell
When I was 15, I smelled burning plastic early in the morning at my family cottage. I almost went back to sleep but in the end, I decided to get up to investigate. Thank God I listened to my gut feeling. A socket on the outside of the building had caught fire and flames were shooting up the wall. The rest of my family was still sleeping and there wasn’t enough smoke for the alarms to go off.
I ran and got the fire extinguisher, got my dad up, put it in his hands, and pointed him towards the fire. He stopped it and called the fire department.
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64. Brother Watches Big Brother
I was 18 years old living with my 20 year old brother. One evening I get home with my girlfriend and he's not at home. Instead of assuming he's at the grocery store or out for a walk—or literally anywhere else—I get really worried and immediately go around looking for him in the apartment. I remember even checking the closets for him for some reason.
My girlfriend tells me I'm acting really weird and tries to calm me down but I can't get rid of the feeling that something is really wrong. That’s when our cousin calls me saying that he found my brother on the street having been thrown out from a bar screaming and crying that he doesn't deserve to live and that he was going to end his life by jumping into the river.
That was the day we found out about my brother’s deep depression and suicidal thoughts. I really have no clue how I knew something was wrong. Maybe there was a small detail in the way he left the apartment that my brain reacted to or maybe I subconsciously had noticed him acting differently lately.
He was always the one worrying for me since he's the big brother and I was always pretty laid-back and carefree so I was really overwhelmed by how confidently my gut feeling was telling me that something was wrong. Today 10 years later he recently became a father of a beautiful girl and is the happiest he has ever been, even despite him losing his job to covid this past year. I am so proud of him.
65. The Forecast
On Boxing Day 2004, my extended family went on a trip to visit the coastal South of Sri Lanka. It was a well-planned trip, but at the last moment, my mother didn't want to go. No reason at all. None of us could get her to explain why but she refused to go. So, we went inland on a different trip to see some other relatives. Around midday, the entire extended family now on both sides were sitting shocked in front of the television watching the very same hotel we booked being washed away live by the tsunami.
To this day, she still can't explain what she felt.
66. Canoe Catastrophe
When I was 13, we went to an outdoor school camp for a week. The week included an overnight canoe trip. I went with my best friend, and the morning of the trip I had a horrible feeling that things were going to go badly and that we should stay back. Unfortunately I ignored the feeling because I was only 13 and doing what I was told.
Long story short, our boat hit a log jam, we went under, I came up, my best friend didn't. She lost her life on the logs that day.
67. The Carpet Sellers
A few years ago, when I was 19 and studying abroad in Europe, my friend and I decided to go to Turkey. It was our first time really traveling on our own without a group and we decided to walk around the square outside of the Blue Mosque. We felt very safe during the day and decided to see the city at night with the lights. As we were in the square, we were hounded by typical store owners trying to sell us something.
Finally, most went away and as we were going back to our hotel, a younger guy approached us. He said he had a shop on the corner, which he pointed to with lots of souvenirs including carpets. I grew up with a lot of handmade, woven carpets from my parents travels to the middle east and Asia. I decided it would be a nice gift. So, we follow him, when we get to what we thought was his shop, we stopped.
We started to walk in and he said not that one, the one around the corner. We poke our head around and sure enough see a store, only selling carpets. I started to get a slightly strange feeling but nothing overwhelming, so we followed him as we could see the store. When we walked in, about 13-15 other men were in the shop. They were pointing out carpets and showing us around and I started to get really uncomfortable. My friend seemed completely at ease, so we followed the group around the bend to the other part of the store.
In Turkey, it is common to be offered tea, so that part is not particularly odd, but the men, who were now circling us, were insistent that we have tea with them in the basement. I kept saying no but they were leading us towards steps, completely surrounding us. We got to the steps and my friend started walking down, my body began to sweat, my heart went crazy, and I never had such an overwhelming fear. I kept trying to think of how we could overpower these men.
I grabbed my phone, stopped in my tracks, and gasped. "Friend's name, we need to go right now. My mom just texted me asking why we aren't back at the hotel yet cause the map shows we're at this store. We're supposed to Facetime with them in 10 minutes." The men kind of look around and tell us we can have tea in less than that amount of time. I keep insisting that my parents are freaking out because they can tell were in the carpet store and not the hotel and that they will likely contact the embassy if we don't get going.
They continued blocking the staircase. I told them that we would come for tea in the morning as I still really wanted a carpet and that we needed to get out of the store and back to Facetime. It took a little persuading but they eventually opened a path for us to go to the door. One of them followed us back to the square insisting that we return/come back and see them. Of course, we didn't.
I have no idea if they were completely harmless or not but I had never had such an overwhelming feeling. They easily could've drugged us, placed us in carpets, and taken us out. My parents didn't actually have our location as my phone was on airplane mode. So, who actually knows, on the other hand, I might've been paranoid, but it wasn't a situation I ever wanted to be in again. Once we were back at the hotel, she told me she was really scared too but that she thought I was fine so she went with it.
68. Bus Accident Prevented
I was going down a hill on some two-lane highway when at the bottom of the hill I noticed there was a bus stopped for some reason. The bus wasn't pulled over to the side to pick people up, so he was blocking the entire right lane. I have to hit the brakes, partly due to speed, and mostly because I can't go around him because traffic is flying by on the left.
As I'm waiting ten feet behind him for a break in the cars in the left to go, something in the back of my mind says "I bet someone else doesn't see that bus." So I look in my rearview and sure enough, there's a white Toyota Tundra barreling toward me way too fast. There was no time for thinking, I just hit the go button and swung my car to the right.
I try to move onto the shoulder, reasoning that it'll mitigate the impact a little. I was right. The lady hit me, bounced me around and sent my phone flying, but when we got out and inspected our vehicles, neither were damaged. She apologized ("I just was thrown off by that bus!"), I reassured her it was fine. We bumped elbows and continued.
69. A Shady Character
I was president of a club, and a guy who'd recently joined just set off my alarm bells, but he never did anything wrong. I still couldn't shake the feeling that he was off. I asked my best friend, a pretty burly guy, to just keep an eye on him during a conference we went to. Most of the club (minus me) went to a party at the conference, my best friend kept an eye on the weird guy for most of the night, and ended up stopping him from touching a passed out drunk girl.
I pretty much always trust my gut feelings now.
70. Highway Havoc
I was driving one day and I got an odd feeling about this car behind me. There were no telltale signs. It wasn’t like the lady was doing something stupid like texting or anything. Anyway, I trusted my gut and I moved lanes and got a car ahead of her. Sure enough the woman rear ended the car between us at the next light. Could have been me.
71. The Perfect House
We were looking at houses a while back, and found one that was in a great location. It would have been the perfect size for us, and didn’t appear to need any work other than new carpet besides stuff I wanted to do like painting and switching it over from an oil-burning furnace. I just had a nagging feeling about it, and my husband agreed.
As much as we loved it, something was off with it (I actually thought a ghost or something silly like that), and we ended up passing on it. I was still kicking myself about it until a few months later when it had a major electrical fire. The whole house and everything in it was a total loss, and the family that lived there barely got out alive.
72. Cagey Co-Worker
I once worked with this older guy who was quiet, a little skittish, but very polite. He strived to be helpful as the work was very group and teamwork oriented. For some bizarre reason, I couldn’t stand the guy. I loathed working with him. I even felt the whisper of an urge to fight the guy—and I’m an average small chick.
These thoughts were very out of character for me as I am absurdly non-confrontational. My reaction to this guy puzzled both my husband and me. He would often tell me the dude has never done or said anything to me off color, and he’s right. I still couldn’t like the guy. One day the coworker doesn’t show up, which is unusual since he almost never called in sick or was ever late.
Later we caught sight of him on the news. He was busted for distributing dirty movies with kids in them. I guess my gut knew. On the plus side, I get to gleefully hate any one I want without reason and my husband can’t argue against it.
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73. The Tinder Match
I matched with a guy on Tinder. We exchanged messages, and everything was fine. We decided we would meet up for coffee in a week. A few days after we arranged the coffee date, and he messaged me saying his father had passed away in those few days. He couldn’t meet me in public. He could only meet me in private at his apartment.
I trusted my gut, sent my condolences, but said I couldn’t meet him somewhere private. He tried to tell me I could trust him because he had a dog. I still declined. He got really aggressive and started messaging me horrible things. He called me every name in the book. I ended up blocking him. I tried to find him later on, and he basically never existed. He could have blocked me on all social media. But I couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere.
I don’t know what the outcome would have been, but I just couldn’t do it.
74. Rational Panic
There was one day I had an irrational panic before taking the bus to my university. I’m not sure what the reason was. I just panicked. My mother said I was crazy and insisted I get on the bus anyway. But panic was correct. The bus I normally took crashed into another car, right before the station. I hit my head on the bus' windshield but went to my Statistics Course anyway.
I apparently had blood everywhere in my hair—and some poorly cleaned glass shards—but no one told me. Eventually the Statistics teacher herself called the University's medical team for me. I was sitting in the first row because I don't see well from far away.
75. The Creepy Coworker
Years ago my partner at the time had a coworker that kept inviting us out to drink. I had never met the guy and was wondering why he seemed so eager to meet me, especially since I wasn’t even old enough to drink at the time. He eventually told my ex that we should come over to his place for drinks (in order for me to partake). I remember around this time creeping his Facebook and seeing the squirrelly guy posing in front of his Honda.
Something about it all made me laugh and wonder why does this 20 something year old want to go to such lengths to hang out with a 17-year-old girl he knows is taken? A couple of years later, I learned the awful reason. He got arrested on a multitude of assault charges. They seized several devices that proved he’d been doing stuff with children and animals since he was at least 13. Cherry on top? He was the local star cop’s son.
76. Alarm Bells About Stepmom
This is about the woman who became my former best friend's stepmother. When I met her there were instant alarm bells going off in my head. They very clearly said "keep away from her ''. I ignored them because c'mon, I knew my friend's dad wasn't an idiot and he dated her for a year. It turns out my gut was more than right.
For one, that woman made Cinderella's stepmother look tame. She would throw things at my friend's dad, she would scream at my friend. She blamed everything on my friend, even when there was no way she could prove it. She even verbally abused her own biological, autistic, son. She once screamed at me, and when my mom confronted her she screamed at my mom.
My friend was always the scapegoat and virtually lived like a slave. She called her lazy for being tired after working two jobs and going to college full time. She tried to get the wifi shut off so my friend "would stop wasting her time playing on her computer all day" when my friend was actually doing homework. She is a monster.
I'm pretty sure she's the reason my friend cut ties with me and all our mutual friends. She had to get away from anything and everything that reminded her of that monster.
77. Clairvoyant Boss
It was any old day at work, the dinner rush was about to hit, and I was tired. As usual, I was going to go to the dollar store to get some Red Bull. I asked my manager if he wanted to split it because they were 2 for $5, and he said no but as soon as I reached the door, he said wait. I asked him what was wrong and he said I should go later.
He didn't give me a reason and we were pretty relaxed, so I told him to screw off and as soon as I pushed the door outwards, I hear a sound I can't even describe aside from just BREAKING. Whatever it was it was broken, that's all I knew. Turns out an SUV drove straight into that dollar store's front door and their Red Bull fridge. My manager has annoyed me like that a million times, but I'll never forget the time he saved my life.
78. He Didn’t Act Fast Enough
I have a sister who had a pretty serious drug addiction, but had come clean. One day I had a gut feeling that she’d relapsed into her addiction problem. We usually talked about once or twice a month, but we’d gone a couple months without talking. I put it on my schedule to visit her. But I guess I just kept putting it off. As it turns out, I should have gone much sooner.
Not only had she relapsed, but she beat up her daughter for drug money. She also tried to rob our parents.
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79. Bad Party Vibes
I had gone to this bar back home with a few friends, and afterward, everyone was supposed to go to this house party. I was game to go from the moment I was invited. Halfway through the night, I had this gut feeling to not go. I told my best friend that she shouldn’t go but she insisted that she wanted to go because there were a few cute guys there. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we shouldn’t go, but she talked me into it.
When we got in my car to head to the party, the gut feeling got even worse. I grew up around cars and drive a manual (my best friend is completely clueless when it comes to cars) so I deliberately grinded the gears and jerked the car and made it stall, acting like something was wrong. I pretended to try to fix what wasn’t broken and after about 15-20 minutes of “fixing” my car, cops and fire trucks followed by EMS flew by us.
I “fixed” my car but told my best friend that I just wasn’t feeling well and she agreed and said my car breaking down ruined her mood, so we went back to my place to watch movies. About an hour after getting home we got a call from a friend of ours saying that the girl who owned the house and who was throwing the party was cheating on her husband who was deployed. He came back on leave to surprise her and caught her in bed with his buddy. Dude pulled out a piece and started unloading at this girl and his friend while everyone else fled the house.
80. Mega Momma Strength
My Mom was once carrying my sister in one arm and I was walking next to her. She noticed a guy approaching and got a weird feeling so she grabbed my hand. Which is why she was able to pull me away from this man when he grabbed me. I can't even imagine the mega momma strength surge that must have happened for her to be able to do that while not dropping my sister.
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81. Scary Snow
I was driving and it started to snow. I noticed that I was going a bit fast and strongly sensed I should slow down. I did, and a couple of seconds later I came up around a bend with the road suddenly being covered in ice. I started to fishtail while sliding directly towards two people standing outside their car. They had wrecked in the same manner that I was about to do and were standing outside their car, with me heading straight for them.
I quickly thought of my options and ended up doing a hard right straight into the highway barrier. I slid nearly 100+ feet dragging the front of my car to slow it down. Because I had decided to slow down, I was able to give the two guys enough time to get out of the way before I slammed into their cars. Even though I totaled my car, which was sad, I did not end up hitting two people that night.
82. Doctor Was Clueless
During my pregnancy, I woke up one morning feeling off. I was in my eighth month. I had no symptoms, no contractions, nothing. I got started with my morning chores anyway. Eventually I decided not to ignore the feeling. I went to the hospital to get checked out. The doctor wanted to release me after checking my vitals but I refused to go.
Luckily one of the nurses took me seriously and decided to check the baby. She noticed something wrong and 45 minutes later my daughter was born by emergency c section. She’d lost most of her blood and wasn’t breathing for the first two and a half minutes. After 4 rounds of platelets, 4 blood transfusions and a month in the NICU she came home.
She’s now a healthy, wonderful 9 year old. We would have lost her if I’d waited even a half hour. My gut feeling and my nurses gut feeling saved my baby.
83. Hot TV
It was Christmas eve in my childhood house and my mom had gotten a large TV for my dad and hid it in my closet along with some other presents. At one point in the night, she had come back into my room to retrieve one of the smaller items and ended up moving the TV right in front of my wall heater, and didn't put it back. I didn't notice and went to sleep a little later.
I don't know if it was the smell or a gut instinct but thank god I woke up, because early the next morning I woke up to find my room filling with smoke and an orange glow coming from the back of the TV box. Luckily no large flames had formed yet and I was able to stop it simply by moving the box out of the way, and of course, turned off the heater and evacuated the room. If I hadn't, we would have woken up on Christmas morning to our house on fire.
84. Toddler Knows Best
I was about three years old and we were being babysat by my great aunt Eleanor. She was really old and generally had no idea what was going on. She decided to take me and my little sister for a walk. My sister was in the stroller and I was just toddling along behind, and fell further back than my parents would have let me.
Two twenty-ish year old men were outside (about two houses down) with hammers and they asked me if I ‘wanted to help them build some shelves’. For some reason I got really, really scared. Like terrified. And I ran to catch up to Eleanor. I had nightmares about this for years and can remember it vividly. This neighbor then bought an old school bus and lived in his parents backyard.
Turns out, he was a child molester with a whole load of victims. I could have easily been one of them. Eleanor probably would have happily left me with them. I still think about that.
85. The Daycare
My mom dropped my 3-year-old brother off at daycare before she had to work in the morning. When she got to work, she had this terrible feeling something was wrong with him. She ended up leaving work and drove to the daycare. She found the daycare lady inside sleeping while the daycare kids (including my brother) were running around the pool. My brother never went back to that daycare again.
86. Grizzly Experience
I was with my mom hiking in the beautiful woods in eastern Quebec. I suddenly heard something break, it sounded like a rather large branch. I would guess maybe 50m away just over a hill. I told my mom that we have to leave right away because I think it’s a bear. My mom tells me that no bears have been in the area for 20 years.
She listens to me anyways and we go back down the mountain and home. The next day a bear was hit by a car just on other side of mountain.
87. The Missed Train
A few years back I went to a university in Brussels. I would always take the train to get there. One morning I just woke up and didn’t feel great at all. Keep in mind I have had a horrible flare up of Crohn’s for the last weeks. But this felt different. Guess it was my gut. So instead of pushing through it as I did with my Crohn’s, I decided to stay home for once.
This was the only day that I ever stayed home from university. That day the terror attack happened on the train that I usually ride to get to school.
88. Manager’s Intuition
Around 2018, I was managing an auto parts store. We had a delivery driver (74 years old, but in decent health) who was putting restock away. I was doing my normal management duties and I heard a stepladder click into place. I remembered that earlier that morning, the same delivery driver had complained about feeling dizzy. I think he had blood sugar issues.
Our top shelves were 12ft (3.5ish meters for non-Americans), and I knew he was the only one putting the restock away. I got up from my desk and walked to the back where I heard him climbing the stepladder, and sure enough, as I rounded the corner, my worst fears came true. He was trying to put a radiator on the top shelf, lost his grip on it, and fell off the top shelf.
I managed to catch him and break his fall. Right in his fall path where his head would’ve hit, was a solid steel oil collection tank, with sharp corners. He still had a sore back and shoulders the next day, but he was alive.
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89. The Dark Night
I met a guy at a bar. He was totally mild-mannered and not creepy at all. He asked me how to sign up for karaoke and pick a song. Sat beside me and talked casually. Didn't touch me once. But then he pointed to something behind my head to distract me. I looked away and looked back at him, and he said he must have made a mistake. It was strange, but I had no idea how dark the night was going to get.
Then, I saw him screwing one of those little canisters back shut on his keychain. I asked him what he kept in there to call him out. He was cold and expressionless as he began to slowly twist it back open and said there was nothing in there. I stopped drinking my drink and he performed his song. When he was on stage, I immediately left. I just knew he'd tried to slip something into my drink.
What always freaked me out was how normal he seemed (before he became suddenly cold and robotic when I called him out on that canister thing). But it made me realize, of course a criminal like him would seem normal - that's how they get close enough to attack you.
90. Parking Lot Panic
I went to the store at 11 pm one night, and as I was walking back to my car I had a bad feeling. Then I heard some guys laughing and walking right behind me. My car was the only one parked in that direction, so I was sure they were following me. Luckily my driver's side was facing me. I quickly unlocked my door, hopped in, and relocked my car door.
By the time I locked the door the three men were smacking the side of my car, and saying "Aw, we just wanna talk." I honked my horn a few times, but they didn't seem to get the message. So I took out my taser and buzzed it a few times. I drove out of there so fast.
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91. A Shady Seller
I was going to meet up with someone from Facebook marketplace to buy a phone and the feeling hit, me so I called the woman and a man answered trying to play off the fact he's a man. I passed by where we were meeting at and it was dark. I heard voices in the background on the phone call. I never stopped the car and kept going. Pretty sure I saved myself from at the very least a mugging but learned a good lesson, always meet in a public place.
92. Teenage Car Chase
I was a teenager driving my preteen brother around running errands for our mom and I got this weird feeling. I noticed that this white work truck behind me had been behind me for an awfully long time. When I turned to look at the truck, the man inside ducked so I couldn't see him. I started panicking and thought, "Maybe it's a fluke".
I looked again and he ducked again. The light turned green and he started following us. I doubled back and went back to where I started and there he was, still behind us. We were kids and we were freaking out now, trying to think of how to get out of this. Adult me would have just driven to the nearest cop shop, but smartphones with GPS were a couple years off then and I didn't know where it was anyway.
I got on the highway and then exited immediately and dove into a residential area with a bunch of twisting roads and finally lost him. My brother promised never to tell our mom about the unsafe driving I did. And then he told her anyway.
93. The Mugging
I had a gut feeling I should pull my wallet and phone out of my purse. Not even 20 seconds later, I get mugged. The man dragged me across the sidewalk and stole my purse BUT all he ended up getting was a juice box.
94. Something Is Very Wrong
I had one of those "something is very wrong" feelings in my stomach many years ago when driving to work one morning. I couldn't shake it the whole way there, even though it wasn't a long drive. I made it to work and sure enough, the entire mood seemed just as off. I got to where I was to start my day and found out one of our supervisors had committed suicide earlier that morning.
95. Toxic Thoughts
My dad left for work, got a weird feeling, and drove back home. When he walked in, he entered a nightmare. Everyone in the house was unconscious. He had to drag or carry them all outside one by one and call the ambulance. It turns out that my mom and her entire family had severe carbon monoxide poisoning. Because he trusted his gut, they all survived.
96. Ghosts Or Something Worse?
I was pregnant and had two kids and we were staying at our home in an apartment building in Quai Chopin, Romans-sur-Isère in the south of France. I swear I could feel the floor and the walls shaking and I could hear crackling around my place. When I checked with my neighbors, most of them told me they couldn't hear or feel anything.
I was still sure it wasn't all in my head so I called my sister who then called the firefighters because she thought I was having a panic attack. When the firefighters arrived, I explained everything but they too couldn't tell anything was wrong so they dismissed me and told me to call the landlord the next day to complain.
I insisted that I didn't feel safe and asked them to evacuate my children and me. The firefighters listened to me and helped us leave the building. About a minute after we left—the building collapsed. Some of my neighbors were also out at the time but most weren't. An elderly couple perished and my other neighbors got out in time with the firefighters.
97. Anxiety Strikes
A couple of months after my 10th birthday we went on a family vacation to visit my dad’s side of the family. They lived a state away. At the time, my mom was about 6 months pregnant with my baby brother. We got to our hotel at about 2:00 pm and by 3:00 pm we decided we wanted to make the most of the day and go to the aquarium. I got fully dressed and ready to go, and suddenly I was hit with this crippling feeling of dread.
At that age, I’d never experienced anything like it. Pure anxiety. But I knew, I just freaking knew if we waited 5 minutes, I would be fine. I tried telling my mom this and she was having none of it. I even tried to just stall her by begging. Nope. Got dragged (not literally) out of the hotel and into the car. We pull out of the parking lot and get T-boned so hard we do a 180 into oncoming traffic. As soon as we all realized we were okay I was like, ah, yep, there it is. I’ve never let either of them forget it either.
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98. Dead Silent
About a year ago I went out on a camping trip on some backpacking trails. I went alone but I do this often so setting up the tent etc was easy. I took a couple hours to fish and came back in time to light a fire—about an hour before sunset—and start dinner. No sooner than the sun went behind the trees the woods went dead silent. Even the creek sounded like it was being muffled.
I had this feeling of dread and anxiousness wash over me and it got to the point I just grabbed my light, my keys, and my knife and walked back to the truck. I left all my stuff behind for the night and drove off. I came back the next morning to find officers and an EMT set up in the parking lot and them telling me to park somewhere else as they needed the lot for medevac. I couldn't believe what happened.
The campsite a few lots down from me looked like a scene from a hack and slash movie. The tent was ripped apart and stuff flung everywhere. The ground was torn up from the campers getting into a drunken fight with a big black bear and some cubs rummaging around their camp the night before.
99. Massive Overwhelming Dread
I used to work in the ER and once I had a man come in with ripping chest pain that started not but 30 minutes prior after he moved something heavy at his office. For some bizarre reason I felt he was going to die just by looking at him. Massive overwhelming dread just seemed to engulf me. I did his EKG and I hoped something would be wrong with it so we could get him a bed.
Unfortunately his EKG was perfect. Not five minutes later he went into cardiac arrest on our waiting room floor. After running the code for 45 minutes, he didn't make it. He had a massive aortic dissection. There wasn't much hope. This was almost 3 years ago and I've seen worse things since then, but the memory is still burned in my mind, and it hurts knowing I was the last person to speak to him.
100. Lifesaver
I work as an ER nurse and had a patient with a little dizziness, a little nausea and a swollen abdomen. She was fairly bright, able to talk, and nothing seemed too horrific. But she was turning a grim gray color and breathing quickly. Our average wait time today was two hours. I could have put her back in the queue and moved on.
But I had a little dark feeling that there was something sinister happening here. So I called our most senior doctor out of a consultation and asked him to see her. Right now. Ever heard of your abdominal aorta? Enormous blood vessel that can pouch out, suddenly rupture, and make you bleed internally to death in minutes?
It’s called a burst AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysm). You’ve heard of it now. That’s what she had. I’ve never seen one before. But now I have. Within five minutes, she was barely responding. Within ten, her blood pressure had dropped to a barely sustainable level. Within twenty minutes, I was pouring blood into her and eight people were around the bed.
Within an hour, she was on an operating table clinging to life. But because I raised the alarm, and because my team worked their butts off, that woman is still, somehow, alive. Feels good, man.
101. Kids Know More Than They Let on
My mom told me this story the other day and it freaked me out. When my oldest sister was little, like 3 years old, she asked my then-pregnant aunt to pick her up to hold her. My mom said she was like "She can't pick you up, honey, she has a baby in her tummy." And then my little sister was like "That baby is dead!" My mom freaked out, but my aunt and grandma were fine and were telling my mom it was all good, she was just a toddler and didn't know what she was saying.
Well, lo and behold my aunt goes to the doctor the next day for a routine pregnancy checkup, and the baby was dead. Give me the willies just thinking about it.
102. Front Float
I was a lifeguard at a lake. There was a mom with a baby and a toddler, and the mom had a friend with her. She was sitting in the shallow water with her newborn, talking to her friend and facing away from the water toward the beach. I had an eye on her toddler because it was driving me nuts that she wasn’t paying attention to him.
He dropped his ball and the small waves started taking it out. Of course, he reached for it and fell over. He slowly started floating and struggling, face down, getting father and farther away. I jumped down, ran in and grabbed him, and probably terrified him as I patted his back over my knee while he vomited out water.
The poor kid kept trying to look at me. His mom noticed nothing until I was carrying him back over to her. She casually thanked me and I tried to warn her of the possibility of dry drowning. Her response made me so mad I wanted to scream. She snapped at me, yelling that she was a nurse and that her son would be fine. I saved her son’s life, and she repaid me by yelling in my face.
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