Life is strange, don’t you think?
One second you’re minding your own business and having a pleasant day and then out of nowhere, something crazy happens.
That’s why you have to appreciate every day we have on this planet…because you never know when something bad might happen.
AskReddit users talked about when they dodged major bullets in their lives.
1. Scary.
“A few months ago I was driving on I-80 at night when out of nowhere the biggest buck I’d ever seen is in the middle of my lane.
I did exactly what you’re not supposed to do and swerved, and thankfully managed to keep the rear of the car content with it.
I literally shaved that buck’s *ss. My mirror was folded in.
I know you’re not supposed to swerve, but I drive a tiny little thing and that buck’s body would’ve gone through my windshield into my and my wife’s face at 70 mph.”
2. Barely made it out.
“I found an explosive device in a National Guard training area when I was 14. It had little pull string and a metal plate to attach it to a tree.
I held the thing in my hand and almost pulled the string but decided to attach it to a tree instead and put on a longer pull string. I pulled the string and it blew a 5 inch hole in the tree.
The explosion was so loud the police came and it made the local news. (They didn’t catch me.) I would have lost at least one hand, maybe both or worse.”
3. Gut feeling.
“My first ever boyfriend dated me when I was 14 and he was 16.
We only dated for one week before he took me into the woods and forced me to kiss him. I started to feel ‘icky’ and broke it off that same day.
Five years later I found out that he was now in prison for r*ping two fourteen year old girls.”
4. Close call.
“I was supposed to hang out with a couple of friends one night.
We were going to go to a party that we were all invited to the weekend before. I asked to get off work early so I could go to the party. My boss let me go early, so I went to go find my friends. But I had a really bad feeling all day and it just kept getting worse.
Instead of turning left to go to my friend’s house, I went right and went home. I found out a few weeks later that they got busted with cocaine in their car. They were 16 and 17 at the time. I was 18, so I would have been screwed.”
5. That’s wild.
“In 1996, my parents were deciding between two houses to move into.
They picked the new construction that resulted in being placed on shoddy soil and years of lawsuits when we ultimately moved in 2001.
Anyway, the other house they could’ve picked (presumably on better soil) would’ve placed my older sister at Columbine High School as a freshman for the 1998-1999 school year.”
6. Sketchy.
“Once at a bar a woman was surprisingly into me as we danced. If I had had more confidence back then I definitely could’ve taken her home.
In the end, one of my karaoke buddies ended up with her instead and got caught by her husband that night.”
7. Not a scratch.
“Driving along a road about 50 mph and a farm tractor comes out of a field straight into the side of me.
Spins my car and as I realise the car is going over I grip the steering wheel tight, close my eyes and brace myself for excruciating pain or death. The car rolls a few times then stops, upside down. I hang there by my seatbelt for a few stunned moments then realise I’m ok.
I walked away with not a single scratch or even a bruise. Car was destroyed, and all the emergency services who attended could not believe I was completely ok.”
8. Avoided a tragedy.
“I was booked on Pan Am flight 103 which went down over Locherbie Scotland.
I didn’t have a premonition or anything supernatural. I just decided to cancel my seat. Didn’t think anything of it until the plane went down and my mother had written down my flight plan and reminded me.
This was back in the day when you could cancel without a penalty up to a couple of days in advance.”
9. Fire hazard.
“I was subletting an apartment in college and got zapped by the electric stove.
Gave notice immediately and moved out with very clear reasons why I was moving out.
The building burned down a few weeks later.”
10. Bomb.
“In 1996 the IRA bombed the Arndale center in Manchester.
Myself and a group of friends were on a bus heading straight there. We were probably about ten to twenty minutes out.
The thing is, one of my friends was late. So we had to get on the bus just after the one we intended to get on. Guess where that bus was when the bomb went off?”
11. Bus crash.
“A bus.
I grew up in Bermuda, and since it is such a small island cars are limited to one per family, and everyone drives mopeds. I was driving into town, and came up to a red light behind a bus.
As is tradition, I scooted around the bus to be in the front of the line of traffic. Literally 2 seconds later a second bus smashed into the back of the first bus at like 30 mph.
I would have been pancaked. Without question, 100% dead. I just sat on the side of the road for a bit and thought about my mortality.”
12. You lucked out.
“My ex-girlfriend moved out of my house a day before the first lockdown in Spain.
She previously pulled a knife on me.”
13. Gotta protect your head!
“I used to roller skate as a kid outside my house down a hill and never wore any kind of protection.
Suddenly one day before I go out my older brother tells me I can’t leave unless I put on a helmet, which is weird since he’s never cared before. Anyways I do it and that day, for the first time ever, I fell and landed on the back of my head so hard that the helmet cracked.
That crack would’ve probably been my skull had I not wore it.”
14. Creepy.
“Years ago I was on a first meet for an internet date. We met at a bar and the bartender carded us.
Even though we were both older they were doing stings in the area so he was carding every single person. Handed mine right over but my date was an *ss about it. The bartender checked mine and handed it back to me. He checked his and rather than handing it back to him he placed it on the bar right in front of me.
It had the s*xual offender stamp on it. The guy picked it up, looked at the bartender, looked at me and then got up and walked out. I immediately googled him. He was on the registry and had been in prison for r*pe.
Lesson learned. Always google. The bartender and I are still friends.”
15. Phew.
“About a year ago at my job I was offered to switch from my current team where I was established for a few years, had seniority, etc. for a new department that just started to kick it off, write processes, basically start from square 1. A lot more work for the same amount of pay. I figured f*ck it and went.
Yesterday they announced that they just closed the physical HQ office for my old department, and everyone in that entire part of the company would have to either move to one of 14 random states (that we cant pick, its chosen basically by a roulette wheel for where you’re going) to a local office, or they’re going to be fired.
Thankfully since I’m part of the new department, I wasn’t included in that mandate. Phew.”
16. Pre-pandemic.
“Sold my three restaurants in February 2020, for way more than they were worth.
Now two of them have closed.”
17. Close call.
“I was a teen driver not paying attention at an intersection at the crest of a hill with low visibility when the light turned green.
The car behind me honked and just as I was about to go a truck barreled through the red light on the perpendicular road at decidedly ludicrous speed. If I had been paying attention and gone when the light turned green, I very likely would have been T-boned to death.
Closest call I’ve ever had.”
18. This is scary.
“I was on the train in Brooklyn a few years ago.
Next to me was this man who had a big tool in his bag. I think it was a hammer. He was moving very oddly. It was just the vibe that “this man is up to something.”
I decided that once we got to the next stop, I would get off the train and catch the next train, which I did. 30 minutes later this guy gets off the train, at my stop, and starts attacking people. He went after cops and was shot to death.
If I didn’t get off that train, and instead got off with him, I might be dead.”
19. No more smoking.
“In 1994, I was on a business trip in LA.
I stopped for a pack of cigarettes before getting on the Santa Monica Freeway. The Northridge earthquake happened while I was in line. Parts of the freeway collapsed.
I quit smoking after that pack.”
20. Ouch.
“Got chucked off a horse. Hit the ground so hard I felt my soul leave my body.
Started to cough up blood and was having trouble breathing within 30 seconds. Rushed to the hospital and the doctors were running down the hallway with me on a back board (doctors running is aways a bad sign). I was sure I was dying.
Come to find out that I broke 2 bones in my back and collapsed a lung. Once I was more with it a nurse handed me my helmet and said “it’s a good job you were wearing this”. It had been cracked almost in half.
If I hadn’t been wearing it that would have been my head, and I’d most certainly be dead or permanently disabled. Wear your helmet kids.”
21. Tinder match.
“I matched with a guy on Tinder who played for the Atlanta Falcons. He was really charming and seemed nice
. He asked me to fly down to Atlantic City for Memorial Day weekend, said he would pay for everything (airfare, hotel, food, etc.) but I had never met him before and he refused to give me his phone number.
I was uncomfortable flying to meet a stranger so I told him no. Two weeks later he was on the news for kicking (and killing) his girlfriends dog.”
22. Avoiding the storm.
“2005, my friend and I evacuated New Orleans 2 days before Hurricane Katrina and drove to Mississippi with the little money we had.
We were trying to decided on where to stay for the night and it was between a mid range hotel or the really cheap motel. Decided to spend a little more for the hotel.
During the night the eye of the storm came through Mississippi and flattened the roof of the motel we decided against.”
23. Split decision.
“When I was 12 years old, I was going to be home alone one evening, since my mother was going to a dinner party at her friend’s house. She wouldn’t be home super late, midnight at the latest – but I would have to tuck myself in and such.
I was looking forward to it and feeling like a really “big girl”, hell yeah! Since we lived in a kind of shared two-story town house, with close neighbors on each side and a nice lady living in a separate apartment upstairs – I felt super safe being home alone at night.
An hour before dinner time, a good friend called and asked me if I wanted to come to her house and have dinner – afterwards they were going to watch “The Abyss” in their giant home theater.
Being a lover of sci-fi and having heard about the really cool computer graphics in that movie – had wanted to watch that movie in like forever. Having the chance to watch it on such a cool setup convinced me to go, despite having looked forward to being home alone.
The evening went fine and I had a good time – but since the movie was really long, I got home pretty late.
When I pulled up to my house on my bike, I only just noticed an orange glare in the windows upstairs – before the first-story windows exploded out in to the garden. The fire department arrived only a few minute later, and put out the fire, before it could engulf our part of the house as well.
Apparently the lady upstairs had fallen asleep on her couch, with a cigarette in her hand. The fire had smoldered in the couch, developing a very toxic smoke, which not only caused the lady to get “normal” smoke inhalation – the chemicals also f*cked up her brain permanently. She was in a coma for a year or so, before they ended up pulling the plug.
The doozy was that we shared our ventilation system with the upstairs apartment, so our apartment was jet black – SO much of the poisonous smoke had come into our home.
The fire marshal (I think they’re called in English?) said that with that amount of smoke, combined with my small stature – I would never even have noticed the fire (I would have been asleep by then), but simply have slipped into a coma and died, before anyone had even noticed the fire from outside the house.
I think the shock almost killed my mother as well. See, she thought I was home (I hadn’t told her of my sudden change of plans), and got the call about the fire from a neighbor – to only later learn that I was shocked, but safe and sound, being looked after by another neighbor.
So I guess that’s the story of how my budding love of sci-fi and computer graphics helped me dodge a bullet with a big fat ”DEATH” stamped on it.
I still love that movie.”
How about you?
Have you ever dodged a major bullet in your life?
If so, tell us all about it in the comments.
Thanks a lot!
