Checking The House
As a child, I often skipped school and would hide in the garage until my parents left. One day, I thought they had already gone when I heard footsteps approaching the garage door. Normally, they would just get in their cars and drive off, so I crept closer to listen. Suddenly, I froze as I heard the lock being tampered with. Panicked, I ran out the back, darted into the garden, and hid in the bushes, heart pounding.
When I checked the house about thirty minutes later, there was no one around. I cautiously went inside, only to discover that the house had been ransacked. My parents had left at the usual time, but while I thought I was avoiding them, I had unknowingly fled from a burglar who had broken in. The terrifying realization hit me – I had narrowly missed a dangerous encounter.
A False Alarm
In the middle of the night, I woke up with chest pains and immediately alerted my wife. She became worried it could be a heart attack, so we rushed to the emergency room. Although the nurses suspected it was a false alarm, they decided to perform an EKG for clarity. As the test was being conducted by two nurses, one experienced and one new, I noticed something unusual on the screen that made them exchange concerned glances. They quickly repeated the test, and one nurse went to fetch additional help.
Soon, several medical professionals entered the room, preparing for immediate action. After further examination, it was revealed that I was indeed experiencing my second heart attack, caused by a blockage in my heart. A stent was needed to clear the obstruction. Following surgery, the doctor remarked, "You probably picked the best time and place to suffer from a heart attack," a statement I couldn’t disagree with.
Pregnant
During my college years, I went through a difficult experience when my ex-girlfriend became pregnant and accused me of being responsible, despite her own actions. She involved her family, blaming me for everything that had occurred. I even considered taking legal action, seeking medico-legal assistance to ensure everything was properly handled.
While discussing medical tests with her father, the pressure seemed to get to her. Unexpectedly, she admitted that I wasn’t the father. Instead, the pregnancy resulted from a fling she had with one of her classmates. This revelation cleared up the confusion, and I was left to reflect on the situation and the choices I made moving forward.
Union Pipe Fitter
My father-in-law, a union pipe fitter, was scheduled to work on a construction project at a power plant on a Sunday. However, on the previous day, he received a call from another company offering a job much closer to home. Given that the new job site was only five minutes away compared to the power plant's 50-minute commute, he accepted the offer and skipped the Sunday shift.
It was fortunate that he did. That very day, an explosion occurred at the power plant, killing several members of his crew, including those he would have been working with. He narrowly avoided being caught in the tragedy, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly circumstances can change.
During His Visit
At 24, I developed a persistent sore on my tongue that caused constant discomfort. Since my boyfriend’s dad was a dentist, I asked him to take a look during a visit. He advised me to see an oral surgeon the next day for further evaluation. Although I initially felt better the following morning and considered canceling the appointment, he insisted I go, which I’m thankful for.
The surgeon quickly diagnosed the issue as an aggressive form of cancer. By the time I had surgery, the cancer had spread to several lymph nodes, and I needed half of my tongue removed along with chemotherapy and radiation. Looking back, I often think that if I had delayed the appointment any longer, I may not have survived. In January, I’ll mark ten years since that life-changing experience.
An Intelligent Woman
There was a time when I was briefly engaged to a man who had repeatedly cheated on his wife, a kind and intelligent woman. Despite their separation, they have two children, and there's a possibility they might reconcile. The end of our engagement came when he expressed his belief that it was acceptable for a man to cheat on his wife after years of marriage, but that a woman should never have that right. This revelation made me question everything.
My heart goes out to his wife, who discovered his infidelity while pregnant with their first child, only two years into their marriage. It’s a tragic situation, but looking back, the couple in the next story may consider themselves fortunate not to have gone through with buying a home together.
Buying A Riverfront
In 2019, my wife and I were on the verge of buying a riverfront property that belonged to her father and uncle. We had everything lined up: the down payment was ready, the mortgage was approved, and we were already living there, paying rent. Unfortunately, progress was slow on the sellers' end, and things took a drastic turn when the river's water level suddenly surged to 30 feet, forcing us to evacuate.
The floodwaters continued to rise, and by the time we decided to go ahead with the purchase, the house was completely destroyed. The unforeseen devastation made it clear that buying the property was no longer a viable option. We had no choice but to walk away from what we had once hoped would be our dream home.
Beneath A Sky Bridge
The other day, as I was walking to work in the winter chill, I found myself beneath a sky bridge when an icicle—larger than me—suddenly crashed down right in front of my face. It was so massive, with a base at least two feet wide, that had I been even a fraction of a second faster, it could have pierced me straight through. For a brief moment, I stood frozen, grappling with the shock of it all.
Nearby, a pedestrian witnessed the entire thing, and the look on his face said it all—wide-eyed and pale with the same realization: how incredibly close I had come to disaster. After regaining my composure, I carried on, though not without a sense of surreal luck. And from that point, I was determined to find a way to settle the score with my manager who’d made that morning particularly stressful.
Complicated
At one point, my manager tried to have me fired for underperformance, which really took a toll on my mental health. The process in our company for issuing even a verbal warning was extremely complicated, so instead of following the protocol, she offered me a severance package to avoid the hassle. Shortly after, I took sick leave, and during my absence, she started the formal firing process. When the situation dragged on for months, I found out she had falsified documents to make me seem like a lost cause.
In the end, I turned things around. I presented a dossier to HR that exposed her misleading statements and detailed her failure to follow proper procedures. This resulted in me moving to a better job with a stronger team. While I did enjoy my success, I couldn't help but rub it in her face for a year. Though she wasn’t fired, my career went from nearly unemployed to thriving.
Merged Into My Lane
A few years ago, I was in a minor accident when another driver merged into my lane, colliding with my car. The crash smashed my driver-side door against their passenger door. Just seconds before the incident, I had pulled my arm back inside the car after having it hanging out the window for a brief moment. If I hadn’t done that, the impact could have easily resulted in my arm being severely injured or even torn off.
In contrast, another story highlights how timing can be crucial in making life-changing decisions. In this case, the individual left their job at just the right moment, making a choice that ultimately proved to be the best for them in the long run.
Sick As A Dog
I quit a job after my boss yelled at everybody for faking being sick when one guy came in with the flu and passed it around the office.
He claimed that people don’t get sick by being near each other. One guy got the flu so bad he was hospitalized for two weeks. I quit with no backup in October 2019. By February 2020, his company went out of business. The guy in the next story was involved with a serial liar.
Girl Fight
I was dating this coworker who lied all the time. I told her from the beginning that I didn’t want to start anything if she wasn’t serious and if there was someone else. She assured me no, and that she had deep feelings for me. One day out of the blue, a random girl stopped by our workplace and asked around for the girl I was dating.
In a building filled with hundreds of people, I happened to be the only one at the front and asked what was going on. As it turns out, this random person was pretty much there to start a fight. The girl I was dating was sending photos to this girl’s boyfriend. Whoops. If I had not been at the front, I would’ve never found out. One angry text later, I never heard from her again.
A Little Friend
I was driving home from visiting my brother in Vermont when a snowstorm started. I didn’t have much experience driving in serious snow and I completely lost control. The car careened off the road and I was heading for a giant boulder extremely quickly. I felt time slow down and I reflected on my life for a moment and then said goodbye to my body.
Suddenly, I was jolted out of it by an abrupt impact, but I could see that the boulder was still quite a few feet away. When I got out of the car, I saw that I had hit a little skinny tree that I could have easily grabbed with one hand. However, it had a giant root system that lifted the car off the ground and stopped me. The car was totaled, but I was completely fine because of that little tree. There is no way I would have survived the other impact. The men in the next story came so close to being blown away.
Gas Tank Grace
Yesterday, I was helping my fiancée’s dad cut some tree limbs from his yard. He was on a lift trying to cut some limbs that were dangling dangerously high over a steel propane tank. The tank itself had $1500 worth of propane. The keyword is “had.” He cut off a limb and it hit the tank with the largest bang I’ve ever heard. Propane came pouring out the top like smoke from a mortar. He struggled to get the lift down enough to jump out and run for his life.
We would later find out that the limb hit the gas valve and it fell straight down into the tank. If it had sparked once, it wouldn’t have mattered how far we ran. We would have been goners. Him, me, and my fiancée who was showering inside, unaware. Now he has no gas, is out $1,500, and almost died. There’s no way we should be alive. The gas is still leaking out even after 24 hours.The guy in the next story thankfully made a level-headed decision about his relationship.
The Final Nail
We came up shy of our financial goal for a wedding and decided to save again for another year. We were gonna go on an adventure and elope. I’m so lucky we didn’t. Our relationship fell apart in the following year. Both of us put nails in the coffin. I was the only one to acknowledge mine. She could do no wrong, and I was being gas-lit pretty badly.
When we split, my depression evaporated. I was able to go off my medication and realize just how deep she had her claws in me. I thank god every day we didn’t get married or my mental health would have been horrendous. The person in the next story learned not to do things that could end up causing permanent damage.
An Eye Opener
When I was a kid, about six years old, I somehow threw a piece of metal in the sky and watched it fall in my face. It opened a large and bloody cut right under my right eye. When my mom saw me rubbing my closed eye with a sea of blood, she almost had a heart attack. But no, I was fine. I got some stitches and it was really scary, but all good.
The cut didn’t even leave a scar. If my dumb self was hit just a bit higher, I would have lost an eye.The girl in the next story knew she had to listen to her intuition.
The Charmer
When we were younger, a guy we knew a little, who was extremely charming and debonair, asked my best friend on a date. Everybody liked him and urged her to say yes—but she had this chilling feeling about him. So, she turned him down. Fast forward 20 years later, he’s all over the news because he’s been incarcerated as a serial murderer who would approach women, charm them, take them on dates, and take their lives.
He started doing this to women right about the time he asked her out. If she’d gone out with him, she would have been one of his first three victims. The detectives even interviewed her as they tried to piece together the early years of his killing spree. The group of friends in the next story came very close to tragedy.
You’re It
We were in Italy on a school field trip. We decided to play “schweinehaufen,” pig pile…dogpile? Anyways, one person is declared the pig and everyone has to jump on them. We played this on a beach at night. Just sand, no danger, right? Well, during the last round, we got up and realized we formed this pile next to a metal pole sticking out of the ground.
It was maybe ten centimeters away and could have easily impaled the first three or four people if we were just a bit closer. We didn’t play that game again. The girl in the next story made the right decision by ending a relationship.
The Summer Camp Creep
I went to summer camp between my junior and senior years of high school and became friends with a group of guys. For reference, I’m a girl. I dated one of the guys in the group. It was both of our second relationships ever, and so we were a little handsy with each other, but I flat-out refused to go all the way with him, because I sure as heck wasn’t losing my virginity to a summer fling I’d only known for a couple of weeks.
He was a little pushy about it but ultimately backed down after I repeatedly refused. We broke up when summer camp was over and remained friends, though he lived in another state. After the breakup, not only did he start to emotionally harm me, threatening his own life if I stopped talking to him, saying he’d never had anyone understand him except for me, that sort of thing…but I found out from one of the other guys in the group that he’d made jokes about attacking me in my sleep. I blocked him on all social media and haven’t talked to him since. The person in the next story would be grateful they turned down a night of debauchery.
New Year, New You And Me
We were troubled teens in the mid-1990s. Me and the missus met a bunch of my mates who had done something illicit on New Year’s Eve the morning after. Two of them were regaling me with tales about how great it was. They looked totally horrible. They had pale green faces, while the third was throwing up in a waste bin at the bus station where we ran into each other.
I just took in the whole situation and internally went, “Nope, I’m not doing that.” It turned out I was right because that New Year’s Eve was the start of a biblical flood of misery and death for those that didn’t turn down the stuff. The man in the next story thought he was surely staring death in the face.
The Hawaii Incident
It was Saturday, January 13th, 2018 I was on a beach in Hawaii doing yoga. My phone pinged with an incredibly terrifying message. It said: “INCOMING BALLISTIC MISSILE. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” I called my daughter and got her voicemail. I told her goodbye. I thought about my friends and family facing this missile and I watched people around me running and panicking.
I was fully prepared to die. It was 38 minutes and 13 seconds before the false alarm message was sent. It changed the way I look at the end of my life. I thought that I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. I no longer have any fear of the afterlife. The guy in the next story thought he had lost his head.
This Is It
My brother followed through with a knife and hit my neck. We were installing a piece of drywall vertically. We were staggering the boards, so he was standing on a stool or something as there was already a half piece below. So this board was a few feet off the ground. I was standing to his left and he was on my right with his right hand trying to carve a hole into the board for a plug.
He is working the blade down to his left where I am standing. My head is at his waist, as I am not standing on anything. All of a sudden, the knife slipped and the follow-through hit me hard in the neck. At this point, I am like, “This is it.” What a tragic way to go. Getting hit by your brother in a freak drywall accident. I immediately start feeling for my neck, think Richard Zednik. It is completely dry. I look up and the knife has no blade. I look further and I find the blade lodged in the piece of drywall. I walked away with an intact and sore neck. The guy in the next story would realize that being drunk really saved his life.
Drunk And Distracted
I lived in Neiva, Colombia in the 90s. When we were getting ready to meet some friends, I think it was to watch a game or something…and by preparing, I mean drinking our butts off. We were supposed to go and meet with some friends in a building a couple of blocks away. But, at that point, I was too intoxicated to drive, and just decided to stay in the bar where we were drinking.
I remember my girlfriend making a fuss about it when we heard an explosion. It turns out that the Guerrilla attacked the building we were going to and kidnapped lots of people, including the occupants of the apartment where we were going to visit. The girl in the next story certainly dodged a horrible, controlling person.
Glad To Have Lost You
In 10th grade of high school, I was in love with a man who was at least 21 years old. He ended up ghosting me and dating my best friend. I was devastated, to say the least. Well, fast forward a few months, my beautiful ex-best friend with green eyes and a pretty body suddenly started dressing in oversized men’s clothing, she stopped participating in sports and stopped going to events. She looked tired and sad all of the time. It turns out this man was a manipulative, controlling, crazy person. He was extremely controlling of her and forbade her from talking or interacting with anyone at school, unless absolutely necessary.
He got her a cell phone and made her call him in between each class, so he could be sure that she wasn’t talking with friends. He knocked her up our senior year and, soon after graduation, he moved her to a new town where she didn’t know anyone, basically to isolate her and further control her. I look back at that and think that could easily have been me. I was a sucker in high school and boy crazy. I know I would have fallen for his trap. The kids in the next story unknowingly had a scary encounter with a predator.
The Youth Minister
My dad worked at a church when I was elementary-aged. The youth minister was fun, had all kinds of cool stuff in his office, and my brother and I liked spending time with him and playing with his nerf guns and whatever else he had for students. We established a tradition where, on a monthly basis, he would take us to a restaurant for breakfast. My brother and I thought it was awesome that he paid us attention since we were younger than the students he worked with for his job.
But, he still took time for us. He took another job a couple of years into this at a different church—that’s when we found out the chilling truth about him. He was incarcerated shortly after for molestation. People came forward from both before and after he was at our church, but none that I’m aware of from when he was there. So my brother and I were groomed by an experienced creep and we were clueless at the time. Nothing happened to either of us, we have no idea why because the opportunity was there. The couple in the next story should be glad there were no vacancies at a bed and breakfast they wanted to stay at.
No Vacancies
About 15 years ago, my girlfriend and I were young and she was eight months pregnant. We rented a nice apartment that was currently being built, and it was a few weeks away from being ready for us to move in. So, we decided to stay at a hotel until then. There was a really nice small bed and breakfast that we had heard about and wanted to stay there, so we called them to make sure there was a vacancy.
There was, so we made the drive up. But, when we got there, apparently there wasn’t a vacancy according to the owner and the woman who we spoke to on the phone had made a mistake. About a week or so later, the entire place burned down and several guests died in the fire. I tried to find more detailed information on it, but never could. All I know is it was some sort of electrical fire, it started in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep, and six people perished that night. It’s terrifying to even think about. The guy in the next story got a lucky break while battling a war.
Blown Away
While I was under bombardment in Baghdad in 2004, a Chinese-made Katyusha rocket landed a few feet away and blew me up.
I stood up, dusted myself off, and discovered I was completely unhurt. As I was marveling at this, I watched another rocket come in. I knew from its parabola that my luck was up. I stood rooted to the spot, horrified, as it came down nose first closer to me than the first one. I’ve never been so certain that my life was over. It failed to explode. The person in the next story received some much-needed help from a mysterious stranger.
The Beautiful Stranger
Before I moved, I got stuck in Boston overnight in the heavy rain with nowhere to stay. My phone was dead, so I couldn’t call anyone or use the maps app. As anyone who’s ever been to Boston can attest, the whole city basically shuts down after two in the morning. Unfamiliar with public transport, I got on the last train that I hoped would take me to my friend outside of the city, but at the last second, I realized the train was going in the opposite direction. I ended up asking this girl where I was, to which she then responded, “Do you not have anywhere to go tonight? Come with me!”
So, I followed her in a daze, not really sure what was happening. She was absolutely gorgeous, so I was sure I was about to get mugged. She took me to her house, blew up an air mattress, and let me use her spare phone charger. The next morning, I thanked her profusely and offered money, but she just smiled and waved it off. We said our goodbyes and I left. I still don’t know her name. The woman in the next story was not going to let her son interfere with her life of luxury living.
Living Lavishly
I used to be engaged and made a lot more money than my then-fiancée. She had a son and we planned on having children together, so I was supportive when she decided to quit her job as a New York City teacher to be a stay-at-home mom. But, then she offhandedly mentions how she wants to look into hiring a full-time babysitter for her son. I asked if she was going back to work in the fall, but she said no. She just wanted someone to watch her son from roughly when I left for work until I came home. I pointed out the whole point of leaving her job to be a stay-at-home mom was to do that very thing.
I already paid people to clean the home and do the landscaping, while I did most of the cooking. We ended up fighting a lot about this over the next couple of weeks until we broke off the engagement and broke up altogether. She’s still friendly with my friends’ wives/girlfriends and I’ve since learned she married a guy who basically works 24/7 to keep her in a life of luxury. The next story is about a person who got diagnosed with a rare illness.
One In A Million Diagnosis
When I was 15 years old, I was suffering from dizzy spells and constant tiredness. They figured I had some kind of anemia. I had a blood test done on me and they found an abnormally high white blood cell count. This usually meant one of two terrible things. I either had Leukemia or Sickle Cell Anemia. Well, it turns out I had a one-in-a-million third option.
Genetically, I have much denser bones than a normal person. The doctor was suspicious of this when it took such an abnormally long time to get a bone marrow sample. Usually, it’s done in five minutes, but it took him nearly twenty minutes to jam the needle into my sternum. Denser bones accounted for a higher white blood cell count. I was, and remain to this date over thirty years later, perfectly healthy.