Whether it’s an impending car crash, a sketchy stalker, or even a building about to fall down—these Redditors had a gut feeling that things weren't going to end well and lived to tell the tale. But not all of them escaped unscathed. The ones who listened to their instincts got off lucky, while others came face-to-face with utter tragedy.
1. 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.
2. 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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3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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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9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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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12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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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15. 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.
16. 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
17. 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.
18. 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!
19. 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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20. 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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21. 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!!
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. 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!
26. 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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27. 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.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. 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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32. 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.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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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37. 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.
38. 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.
39. 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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40. 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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41. 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.
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. 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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45. 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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46. 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.
47. 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.
48. 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.
49. 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.
50. 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.
Sources: Reddit
