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“No One Survived”: 34 Times People Had A Gut Feeling To Do Something And It Actually Saved Them
If you’re a true crime fanatic, there’s a good chance that you’ve learned to always trust your gut. Whether you feel like you’re being followed in a dark parking lot or you start having second thoughts about going home with your Tinder date, you should never ignore that little voice inside of you that notices danger. It might even save your life some day.
Redditors have been recalling times that following their instincts helped them narrowly escape dangerous situations, so we’ve gathered some of their eeriest stories below. Enjoy reading about these situations where people were incredibly lucky to survive, and be sure to upvote the ones that give you chills.
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#1
I went to my urologist with epididymitis. He found the smallest amount of detectable blood in my urine. On a whim, he sent me to have an IVP (They put dye in your blood and radiologist has a look) He saw a mass on my left kidney. 20 minutes later I knew I had cancer when I saw the blood supply to the mass. That was on Thursday. Tests Friday. Monday he took out my kidney with a grapefruit size stage 3 tumor. There was no margin. Many years later my wife told me the doctor told her that I had a 50/50 chance of living 6 months. That was 1992. Lucky me.
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#2
About ten years ago, my mom and I stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. I was driving and she was the passenger. I parked my pickup truck with my front end facing the street, in front of an electrical post.
I thought we were eating in, but my mom said no, let's order to go. She told me what she wanted and said she'd wait for me in the truck.
For some reason, i just did not want to leave her there. I was insistent that she come in with me. "What if i get the order wrong?" I said. "Come on, just come in with me." Mind you, i was like 20-21 at the time, plenty old enough to go in a restaurant order on my own. But something just told me she had to come too.
She relented and came in with me. I had just barely finished placing the order when i heard a strange sound outside behind me. The cashier taking my order looked outside right after returning my debit card and says "wow, that crash looks bad!"
I turned around and it turns out that a drunk driver (at 2PM on a Wednesday) zoomed down the wrong side of the road and slammed into the post i was parked in front of. The driver died on impact. The post collapsed and crushed the cab of my truck on the passenger side.
Needless to say, i lost the pickup truck but kept my mom.
#3
When I was 14 my cousin and I found my uncle's gun stash in his closet. My cousin grabbed a pistol and pointed it at my head with is finger on the trigger.
I quickly told him to stop and that's not funny.
He glared at me and told me it's not loaded while he pointed it at the floor and pulled the trigger. Gun was loaded and blew a big hole in the floor.
I think about this a lot. I brought it up once to my cousin and he started to cry. That experience cut us both deep.
#4
My mom.
I was almost 15. I had put on a lot of water weight and she was worried about it. Finally I was in pain and she realized it was literally just water weight so took me to the hospital.
First ER was like “oh yeah it’s just thyroid, take this and follow up with your doctor.”
Mom waited a few hours but felt uncomfortable. So she drove me to another ER who told her if she hadn’t gotten me in when she did, I would have died before the follow up. My kidneys had failed.
I’m better now.
#5
I was riding my bike to school as normal when I was about 12 and I stopped at a crossing. All the cars stopped but I felt that something was off and waited a little longer. As soon as I started to cross, there was a flash of green as a range rover speeded past me barely a hair from the front wheel of my bike. If I had started to cross sooner then I would have been hit head on and most likely not have survived as the car was going that fast. I was so shakey that I turned round and headed home explaining to my mum what happened. As I was still shaking, she believed me and made me a hot chocolate.
#6
I was travelling in the Philippines in Northern Luzon (that's the part always hit hard by typhoons). It was just the beginning of rainy season.
I was in Banaue and was planning to go up north to Sagada the next day, Saturday. The lonely planet writes about this route as "The scariest road in the world", it's solid mountain on one side, and deep deep deep on the other. There was a Jeepney scheduled in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Everyone who knows me knows, that I'm not a morning person and if there is a later option, I'm definitely taking this one. On a whim the night before I decided to leave earlier and take the 8am Jeep. Super out of character for me and I'm still not sure why I did it.
A few days later, on another bus, I chatted with this nice lady and she asked me what places in the Philippines I've been to so far. And she says **OMG have you heard about the Jeepney accident on Saturday afternoon on the road from Banaue to Sagada??**
So apparently the Jeepney I planned to take came upon a mountain slide lost control and went down the side of the mountain. 10 people died, no one survived.
#7
Had a weird feeling something was seriously wrong with me when I stood up and almost passed out at a big football game. We left the stadium and went to the ER. Turns out my appendix was ruptured and I needed surgery ASAP. I had been having stomach pain prior to this but brushed it off as digestion problems. Good thing I went!
Edit. We were watching the Cotton Bowl in Texas my wife got me tickets for Christmas as the college we went was playing that year. we are from Michigan so we had quite the drive to get to Texas. my appendix ruptured in the third quarter and I ended up finishing the game in the hospital. we stayed a few extra days but I had to get back to college so my wife drove 17 hours straight and we had to get out of the car every 45 minutes to an hour so I could walk around to avoid blood clotting. She was my fiancé at the time and this trip really made us stronger and I knew we would have a happy marriage.
Thanks for all the well wishes!
#8
I was drinking and felt something stick in the back of my throat. I almost forced it down because it was really far back and awkward to cough up, but I decided to spit it out anyways.
It was a shard of glass from the bottle I was drinking out of. It still creeps me out to think about even years later because I REALLY was just going to swallow it.
#9
My mom had a date with a guy she met on a dating site when I was in middle school. I was sick that day so she cancelled on him to take care of me. A few weeks later she saw him on the news, being arrested for murdering a lady he met on a dating site and throwing her body in the dumpster outside the restaurant my mom was supposed to meet him at. I guess I might’ve saved her life?
#10
Former professional motorcycle instructor here.
I was riding a motorcycle at night on Highway 17 in Northern California—an infamously dangerous and twisty mountain pass with low-visibility around most corners. Each direction of the highway has 2 lanes.
For no particular reason, I decided to change lanes. Around the next corner, there was a washing machine in my original lane that was only visible after it would have been too late to avoid. At highway speeds, a collision like that would have sent me to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
That one still messes with my head.
#11
I was running down escalators to catch a train during winter and happened to slip on some ice on the platform. I slid quite fast on my b*m, and I ended up getting stuck in the middle of a train and the plantform, thigh high. I couldn't get myself out because of the awkward position, and called for help. The platform was full of people who just stared.
I was pulled out by a drunk person JUST before the train started moving. Had a pulled hamstring and cuts and bruises in my arms and hands.
Still get quite angry thinking about the bystanders not doing anything but gape.
#12
Mid-1990s. Traveled to northern New Jersey with a friend from college. It was his hometown. We had plans to visit New York city and see a former roommate who graduated the year before (friend 2).
Well, apprently Friend 2 dabbled in low-level organized crime since his last years in college. We had some knowledge of this but were not involved. He invited us to a an associate’s house with plans to go out afterward. We declined. Not our scene. In fact, both of us had applied to law school. I planned to pursue a career in federal law enforcement thereafter. We both wanted distance from that nonsense.
We tried the following day to reach our friend 2 for a low-key lunch before heading out of town. No answer. Well, local police found his body two days later, along with 2 other bodies, at the house to which he invited us. He was m******d at the meeting / social situation. Could have been us too.
I knew that was bad news.
#13
One time working at a grocery store at night, I had cart duty, and had to collect all the carts from the parking lot and bring them in to the store. It was dark out and I had my headphones in, and I was looking at the ground and pushing a chain of carts, when suddenly it got darker. I stopped for a split second to wonder how it could get darker when it was already night and BAM! One of the huge 30 + feet high parking lot lights smashed onto the ground right in front of me. Hit the carts and missed me by 2 feet. The metal had rusted out and it snapped at the base. If I hadn't stopped to wonder how it got darker I would've definitely died.
#14
In 2016 my wife and I were in Berlin to explore and visit the Christmas markets. The plan for that evening was to go out to eat and then get the train back to stop into the markets at Breitscheidplatz as it was close to our hotel, this had been the plan for the entire trip as it was the last night.
We had finished our meal and were headed to the train station. Just as we were about to board the train, my wife decided that she didn't want to go the the markets at Breitscheidplatz and would prefer to double back to a smaller one we had passed on the walk from the restaurant to the station. I, being a stubborn p***k, didn't want to change the plans but she got her way and we headed back, staying at the smaller market for about 30 minutes.
After finally getting the train back, we got off and walked towards our hotel. After a minute or so there appeared a seemingly never ending stream of emergency vehicles. Not knowing what was going on, but obviously something serious, we speeded up and locked ourselves in the hotel room. We had the English language 24 news channel on and after about an hour, reports started to come through about a terrorist attack. A man had driven a truck into a crowd at the Breitscheidplatz market. Obviously I'll never know if we would have been in the exact spot, but we definately would have been there at the same time, and I am never allowed to complain about my wife changing her mind, ever again.
#15
Had been bleeding and in pain for a month and every time I went to the doctor they brushed me off and said I was having a miscarriage.
Finally one night I got super dizzy all of a sudden and was in even more pain. My boyfriend at the time kept telling me I was fine and to go to sleep. Finally at one 1 in the morning I drove myself to the ER. I had a tubal pregnancy and my fallopian tube had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. Now I trust my gut feelings and tell everyone else to screw off.
#16
In labour with my daughter. I only have the one child, so it was my first labour and I had no idea what to expect really.
All was fine, I was progressing slowly but surely, minimal pain relief needed... Then there was shift change.
My new midwife just wanted it over with. She was clearly bored and kept offering to break my waters. I said no several times.
My ex went to update the waiting grandparents and while he was gone she decided to check how things were going. She asked to break my waters, I said no. She kept her hand inside my while I was having a contraction and kept asking me. I've no idea if I said yes or not, I just remember blinding pain, so possibly I said yes to make her stop whatever she was doing.
After that things went FAST. I was in so much pain and couldn't figure out what my body was doing. It just didn't feel right at all. I kept asking her to check on me and check on the baby, she wouldn't.
By this point my ex had come back, and he was asking her to check and she just said it wasn't time to yet.
I screamed my head off. I screamed and screamed for help until another midwife popped her head around the door to ask if everything was OK.
My midwife said yes, but I shouted "NO!!! PLEASE CHECK ON MY BABY!"
New midwife hesitated slightly, as she'd be disrespecting a colleague but ultimately decided to check me. She did a 30 second check and looked at my ex and said "press the red button. Now".
With that the surgeon came in and I was rushed off for a c-section.
As I was being stitched up, it was explained what the emergency was. My body was trying to push, I was, without knowing it, fighting the urge to push. I was only 3cm dilated. My daughter was in distress. There was no oxygen in the cord blood.
My instincts, plus the new midwifes instinct to listen to me instead of her colleague, saved both mine and my daughters life.
I am forever thankful to her.
#17
Was driving at the speed limit of 70mph on a highway that I drove daily to go home from work. This particular day, there was an event downtown that had the traffic completely stopped for miles. There was an S bend in the road though, so you couldn't tell until you were nearly on top of it.
I tried to brake, but nothing happened. My brain broke and I kept slamming on the brake pedal, but nothing was happening, and I was in the left lane of a four lane highway with very little time to spare before I nearly hit the wall of cars in front of me. Left shoulder of the road was barely wide enough for a bike, and cars were coming up the on-ramp on the right side.
I noticed a small gap in between the cars on the on-ramp, but it was in front of me, so I actually sped up to sneak through that gap and onto the grass beside the highway. At one point, I was over 85mph knowing I had no brakes in order to get through that gap. I barely made it, and eventually slowed to a stop on the grass. I called my friends to come help, and when they showed up 45 minutes later, I was still clutching the steering wheel with white knuckles and staring straight ahead. It's a miracle that I walked away without a scratch.
#18
Mine wasn’t a gut feeling, rather it was a dream. I grew up in the country on several acres of woods and creeks. I loved any and all animals - I was obsessed. I would bring all manner of critters home and put them in an aquarium to observe before releasing them back where I found them the next day.
One day I found a water snake near the creek, so of course I brought it home and put it in the aquarium. That night I had a dream. I was reading our local newspaper and the headline said a young girl had died after a venomous snake had escaped an enclosure and bitten her. Except it was my name printed in the paper along with that day’s date! I jolted awake in a cold sweat and immediately took the entire aquarium outside and put it by the tree line before flipping the lid open and booking it back inside.
The next day at school during Library I looked up a book about snakes (pre-internet days) and there was a picture of the snake I had brought home - not the harmless water snake I had thought, but a water moccasin, aka cottonmouth. A snake that could have very easily killed a young child.
So yeah, looking back I realize how utterly stupid I had been and how easily it could have gone terribly wrong. Or maybe nothing would have happened and I’m just making a big deal of a scary dream. I don’t know, but I like to think something was watching out for me that night.
#19
Few years ago went on a trip to Cuba and Mexico. Last minute decided to stay longer in Havana despite mess that hurricane Irma has left behind (few days without electricity was actually oddly amazing). We were supposed to be flying to Mexico City. Our Mexico City airbnb building collapsed during earthquake. There was no logical reason behind our decision about staying. I just proposed it and my partner agreed. Crazy.
#20
My mother made me meatloaf and I was super hungry. She insisted that she could reheat it for me and that she would make me some sides and brew some tea for me. Like really sounded like a great situation!
But it felt weird to me so I declined and said that I wasn’t in a meatloaf mood.
Her response, “oh well perhaps that’s for the best, I did use a lot of Worcestershire sauce when I made this.”
Worcestershire sauce is made with anchovy. And I’m allergic to fish.
#21
Early on in my alcoholism I didnt know that withdrawals were a thing, or that they could k**l you. At one point I was drinking 2 fifths of vodka a day. Considering that my life was falling apart I decided one day to not drink. Big mistake. At first I thought I was just having a bad hangover. My heart was racing even though I wasnt moving around. I was shaking, hallucinating, going numb all over, and began wondering if I should go to the hospital. By the time I got there my heart was beating about 170 per minute while at rest. The doctors acted very quickly and I just remember being surrounded by people, them stripping me, shoving an IV in my neck, and yelling "he's gonna seize!" After the first seizure I was so messed up they kept hitting me with ativan over and over because it wasnt working fast enough.
Later on, in the ICU, the docs told me I shouldn't be alive and that they gave me enough ativan to put down an elephant. When I think about what would have happened had I not gone to the hospital, it makes me sad that I wasnt more educated on the dangers of quitting drinking cold turkey.
#22
Spouse and I came back home to our apartment late after traveling. We were both exhausted but made the somewhat weird decision on the way back to stop at the grocery store and get steaks to make dinner. There was an alarm going off in the house but we couldn't find it and decided to just eat (warning sign/bad decision #1). In the time that it took us to cook and eat the steaks, we both started to feel very odd and would see a kaleidoscope every time we closed our eyes. By this point we were both realizing that it was carbon monoxide, but instead of leaving the house we opened all the windows and laid down on the couch to go to sleep.
I remember lying there, all snuggled up, and thinking "this isn't such a bad way to die, really." That thought shot me out of it and I immediately got up and forced my partner out of the house... and by "immediately" I mean I got up and forced them up, and then we both sort of weirdly puttered around for another half hour because carbon monoxide makes you forget how to behave. I packed a bag for us that was like, half of our clothes because I couldn't think straight. Sat in the car together and realized we had to call a cab because he couldn't read any of the road names (in our own neighborhood.) Had a horrible headache, nausea, dizziness and chest pain for the next two days.
Moral of the story is: get a carbon monoxide detector for every room in your house-- especially bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens. Carbon monoxide is really scary, silent, and will k**l you in your sleep.
#23
I'm not sure we would have died but it wouldn't have been pretty. We had a fire going in the backyard at a friend's house. My friend's dad decided to burn some junk from the garage. Mostly old boxes and papers and stuff. So we're helping feed that stuff into the fire. I grab the next small box to throw in and I can tell there's something in this one. There had been stuff in most of them but it was always just pamphlets and little bits of packaging so we had stopped really checking and were just throwing them in. Well, I'm standing there with the box over the fire about to drop it when I decide to check this one. It was full of live mortar shell fireworks. My friend's dad decided we had burned enough garage junk at that point.
#24
I had sprained my ankle in the beginning of November and was diagnosed with COVID-19 at the end of November. Those two things (along with taking an oral contraceptive) led to massive blood clots forming in my leg and breaking off and traveling to my lungs.
Before I knew about the blood clots I was experiencing major pain in my leg and had told my parents, but they both insisted it was just my sprained ankle that was causing the pain. My gut told me something more was wrong, so I ended up going to the ER. It was there that the blood clots were found, and I was treated in the hospital for three days.
I’m so thankful I listened to my gut, because the consequences of the blood clots in my leg+lungs could’ve been much, much worse.
#25
While fishing on a large lake in Canada, we were a little more than halfway across when the wind really started picking up and a storm started rolling in. I had the choice to turn back, or head to an island with a bay.
I decided to head for the bay and just as we reached the calmer water we looked behind us and the storm had gotten worse. We were in an aluminum boat, and if we had chosen to head back, 3 of us would have drowned, no doubt in my mind. We were already taking on water and were completely drenched when we beached on the island.
Once the storm abated, we made the journey back and it still took 4 hours in h**h wind for a normally half hour boat trip. Warming up in the truck was the best feeling in the world after that.
#26
In 1976, I was on vacation with my parents in Colorado and we drive through Big Thompson Canyon. My mom, brother and I all wanted to stay at one of the little hotels within the canyon, but my dad said no, and we continued on our way home to Illinois. After we got home, we saw on the news that the canyon flooded, killing over 100 people. Had we stayed there, we would have probably been killed too.
#27
Hit by a car while riding a motorcycle. Old lady who could barely see in Palm Beach ran a light and hit me. August in S. Florida and for some reason that day I put on a leather jacket and full face helmet. Helmet and leathers destroyed, I walked away.
Definitely had the feeling that a power greater than myself made that decision for me.
#28
I was backpacking in New Mexico and was about to take a step when I had a weird feeling and threw my arm out to stop my buddy from going, and directly in front of us was a coiled rattlesnake that began rattling like crazy. Was kinda cool because it was so outside of my conscious mind, it just felt like my body was like "don't f*****g go there man".
#29
A s******l kid tried to k**l himself by crashing into my car head on. At the last second I veered right (US) and jumped the curb. He was still able to adjust and smack me pretty good, but nothing like a head on collision.
#30
Not my gut, my mother's, decided to drive to the ambulance/fire station instead of the hospital. Difference of ~10 minutes. Almost bled out from severed arteries.
Dad wouldn't let her call an ambulance (America $$$) but couldn't stop the paramedics taking me once she got me to them.
#31
Was standing in line outside of the club Mohawk during SXSW 2014 to see Tyler the Creator. At the last minute decided I'd rather go back to Stubbs and catch Damon Albarn's set. As I headed back up the street a drunk driver trying to escape the police smashed the barrier, missed me by inches and killed 4 people I was standing next to.
#32
I was 14 and on holiday in Greece with family, I got ill with either sun stroke or food poisoning (same symptoms) and I spent 4 days not being able to hold down any food or water whilst being very sick, even a tea spoon of water would result in me throwing up 10x that amount but of bile.
And that morning my parents said they wanted to take me hospital but I felt fine, just couldn't hold down food/water and really didn't want to go so I said if I'm still sick tomorrow i would go then.
So they left for the beach and I stayed behind at the apartment, but as my dad got to the bottom of the stairs to our apartment he had a "strange" feeling that things didn't feel right so he came back up with my mum and they took me to hospital which I was angry about.
We waited roughly a hour in the waiting room then got seen, we explained the situation and the nurses checked my veins then asked me if I had any pains/aching coming from my organs, which I did. After this they started rushing round really quick to get me on a IV drip. It took 12 attempts to get the IV in and after i was hooked up for a hour and they knew I was safe they explained that my veins had collapsed (why it took 12 attempts to get iv in) and that the aching feeling from my organs was them starting to shut down and if I had arrived hospital a couple hours later I would have died.
So basically if my dad didn't get this "strange" feeling when he left i would have died in that apartment.
There's a Through The Wormhole episode which has a explanation about what happened to me i believe. If you want to watch it for yourself the episode is 'Is there a sixth sense' is season 3 or 4 i think.
#33
I almost choked and died on a hot dog.
I had a few ways I could've responded: Freak out and make it worse, try swallowing really really hard only to fail, OR stay calm to preserve enough oxygen and think.
I kept calm as my husband was about ready to pull me out of the car to give me the heimlich. I took in as deep a breath (it wasn't blocking completely), and coughed it out.
That's the story I tell to people about the importance of chewing your food. Especially hot dogs.
#34
I almost slept through the drs appointment where I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and brought in for an emergency induction. That appointment saved my daughter's and my life. The gut feeling was my moms. She told me to get up, it was a beautiful day and we needed to check on my baby.
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