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Everyone dodges a few bullets during their lives – mostly metaphorical, thank goodness – and they can really help us take stock of our lives and what we need to change.
These 13 near-misses were big enough that there’s no way these people were the same afterward.
Check it out and see what I mean!
13. Your mom was right about your headphones.
A literal police car. The police were chasing someone and I was crossing the road and my dumba** was walkin slowly and the police car nearly grazed me.
Look both ways and take off your headphones when you cross the road kids!!
12. Luck was on his side.
I had a cardic arrest about four years ago. Dropped dead(ish) in the middle of my shift. Found out after I woke up about a week later that:
A) the manager who saw me fall was a former life guard and knew proper CPR
B) an ambulance happened to be passing about two blocks away
C) probably the best cardio unit in my state was a ten minute ambulance ride from where it all happened.
Walked out of the hospital about two weeks later, full recovery.
11. A happy ending.
This is a weird one, but the family that adopted me probably helped me dodge a huge bullet. I was born to a poor teenager and she just happened to go to a particular solo adoption agent who just happened to know my adoptive parents personally. My parents were only in the state for such a short amount of time (military fam) that it’s wild they’re the ones who managed to adopt me. They also were the mom’s second choice at first, as other families were trying to get me. From what I understand, it is a miracle that I ended up with the parents I have now.
Anyway, they’re the best family I could ask for. Seriously, they’re saints. Supportive and kind and hardworking people. My mom is my best friend. My sister is on the spectrum and taught me more about accepting myself than anyone else ever could. My dad and I didn’t have a perfect relationship, but he taught me some much-needed lessons about adulthood that I probably wouldn’t have understood so wholly without him. I often think about what kinds of families I could’ve ended up with, maybe a wealthier one, but I got them instead. They’re all a bunch of loving weirdos and I grew up with so many friends who had abusive parents, parents who hated each other, siblings who were downright cruel, etc. They never made a show of me, like lots of adoptive parents do, and they’ve always supported my far-fetched ideas. They were just… this amazing blend of structured and chill. For example, I loved farming and horses as a kid, so my parents homeschooled me and allowed me to spend every other week at our family friends’ farm, helping take care of the horses and just having fun doing farm stuff, while making sure that I was always on top of school.
Also, I was born with some health issues— my mom was a nurse and my dad a medic, so they took amazing care of me. They’ve also always respected my extreme introversion and shyness, when other people have tried to push me to pretend to be something I’m not. My brothers and sisters were much older than me, so they were able to look out for me when I was a dumb teenager, while relating with me and showing me a lot of empathy.
Another cool thing— my parents have said that they love having a young kid at an older age, as they’re old enough to be my grandparents. I’ve introduced them to things they would never have known about otherwise, and dragged them along to places and trips and events that they ended up liking a lot. One time, my dad drove me for five hours (and let me skip school) to see my favorite band on their last tour. The show was at a bar and we had an incredible time, and my dad was hit on by tons of gay dudes all night; he was very flattered and it was so fun. We also toured some local gastropubs that day and it reignited my dad’s passion for farm-to-table cooking. If we didn’t have each other, we both would’ve missed out on so much. We all just… complete each other. I feel like I really was born to be in this family.
Finally, they are black, and I am half-black. We live in an area that’s like 99% white and I was teased quite a bit as a kid, but they always had my back. They gave me a lot of perspective, as my mom literally grew up under Jim Crow laws. They taught me to be kind when it’s hard to be, and to defend myself when no one else will.
I’m so lucky.
Sorry for the “hypothetical bullet” answer, but yeah.
10. What on earth.
Just before starting HS, I got hit by a car doing 35 mph, while riding my bike. (T-boned) My bike went under the car, I was thrown up, smashed the windshield out with my back, was flipped over the car, and landed a perfect no hop landing, on my feet, like a gymnast (minus the arms raised flourish at the end).
The entire accident was witnessed by a firefighter who was watching out his window, literally standing right next to his emergency radio, and called for an ambulance.
The lady who hit me got out of her car, yelling, “I’m a nurse, I’m a nurse, lie down.”
I had no breaks or fractures, just a bruised ribcage.
9. Wait for it.
My GF and I were going to see Cats, the movie. Our Uber pulls up and straight away we notice something about the driver. To this day, we can’t articulate what it was, other than to say he just felt “off”. We got into he car, already hesitating and a touch anxious. He looks at us in the rear view mirror and makes a comment like “two lovely ladies in my car tonight” or some weird sh%t.
A few minutes in, he makes another semi-sexual innuendo comment about “riding” with him. My friend notices the handle of a knife just poking out the side of his jacket. She says “hey can we stop at 7-11, we need to grab a Gatorade real quick.” So we go in and refuse to come back out.
We’re considering whether to call the Police or not (it was so creepy, but what would we say? “Ah, some dude was creepy to us?) And while we’re hesitating, he winds down his window, brandishes this fucking hunting knife at both of us, screams something about devil-women and then just tears it out the parking lot.
To this day, my GF and I are so thankful that we got out of that Uber. Otherwise we would have made it to the movies in time and we would have seen Cats.
8. Life isn’t always fair.
I had a high school math teacher survive an aortic aneurysm.
IE his aorta, the blood vessel carrying oxygenated blood out of your lungs gets a hole in it and the blood starts leaking/shooting into your thoracic cavity. This is very fatal. It was Friday afternoon (payday).
He was in line at the bank. This bank was next door to a hospital. A trauma surgeon and EMT crew were both in the line behind him. They called him the miracle man. Teacher was a prick but lived.
7. It wasn’t meant to be.
7.92 Mauser rifle bullet.
When I was 15ish I was very depressed and got very drunk, found my great grandfather’s WWI captured German rifle, found some bullets from that time, loaded it, and put the rifle in my mouth and pulled the trigger.
Thankfully the bullet was not loaded properly / was a dud for being 90 years old at the time, and did not fire.
6. What a relief.
Almost proposed to a girl who had been cheating on me with a pile of shit that called himself my best friend.
This was years ago, and I’m getting married at the end of the month to the love of my life. Life has a way of working itself out.
5. Sends a chill straight down your spine.
My first husband and I were separated. He showed up at my apartment building unannounced and someone let him in because they recognized him from when he lived there. He wanted to come upstairs, but I met him in the lobby instead, where there were cameras and other people. He had never been violent towards me, but it didn’t feel right to allow him into my space.
He asked me to go for a drive with him and I refused. I offered to help him get help (mental health issues that he refused to treat). He declined and drove away.
He was missing for a few days but turned up several states away visiting a friend. A few days after that he took his own life using a handgun. We found out later that he’d purchased the gun here, and headed straight out of town when I refused to get in the car with him. To this day, I am thankful that I never got in that car with him. He’d never even talked about buying a gun before, I had no idea he was armed. Who knows what would have happened.
4. He was supposed to live.
My great grandfather was in the merchant navy in the war. He was in the engine room at the bottom of the ship and his friend came down to take over the shift early. Minutes later a torpedo struck and everyone at the bottom of the ship couldn’t escape and died.
My great grandfather would’ve been one of them otherwise. Then, he was in the sea for a while and happened to be picked up by some Portuguese fisherman who saved him.
Then, all part of the same tale, he escaped death again. He was meant to be on a flight back to the U.K. but got kicked off last minute to be replaced by VIPs. That plane got shot down and everyone died in it.
3. Lucky he was there.
Literally. I was walking back to our barracks in Afghanistan talking with my peers and my staff Sergeant. We get to on part my staff Sergeant grabbed my collar and pulled me back.
Right there was a unexploded 40mm grenade projectile from a launcher sitting where my my foot was about to land. Big yikes.
2. I’m holding my breath.
My dad was going through severe depression 10 years ago and my life was equally shitty for a whole multitude of reasons, and it was rubbing off on me.
I spent what felt like half an hour crying on the floor and working up the nerve to pull the trigger, then when I finally did, the safety was on; I sold my gun the next morning.
Wish my dad was able to say the same 3 years later (R.I.P.)
1. Violence always escalates.
Well, about 15 years ago I dated a guy for less than a year. It was an awful, abusive relationship and I was happy to get out of it when I did.
About… 8-9 years ago, I saw him on the news. He strangled his girlfriend to death. He then dismembered her and lived with her body for a month or so before he was caught.
Edit: wow. Thank you for all of the awards. I’ve actually written about this before on askreddit under a “have you dated a serial killer?” Question. Here was my answer which gives a bit more detail on it.
“Not a SERIAL killer… but I dated a killer.
He was not a killer at the time.
We were young, and met on a dating website. He went to my high school but graduated a few years before me. The first… month? Was ok.
Then he changed.
We had a huge fight one time because he said something silly. I don’t even remember what it was, but I playfully threw a pillow at him. He immediately flipped out, punched a hole in my door and told me he’d make it so I would never have anything to come back to.
Another time, he FINALLY got a job. Didn’t have one when I met him and I was paying for everything. After job searching for months, he got one. It’s his first few days at his new job, and all of a sudden he doesn’t want to go in. No reason, he just doesn’t feel like it. I tell him he better get to that damn job or he’s going to lose it. After a lot if arguing, he gets ready and we both get in the car so I can drive him to work. As I’m driving, it gets MORE heated and he starts strangling me while I’m at a red light. The red light was right next to a gas station and I pull in there while his hands are around my throat. I manage to get him off me and I get out of the car and scream, “what the fuck?!”
“I’m sorry. I blacked out. You just… pissed me off so much! I told you I didn’t want to go to work!”
The relationship lasted less than a year. He cheated on me with some girl, and for the first and only time in my life, I was GLAD someone was cheating on me. You can go live with her and be someone else’s problem now.
Then years later when I saw him on the news, I felt really bad for that thought.
He had handcuffed his then girlfriend (who had just had his baby) to the bed, and strangled her to death. He thought she had cheated on him. He then dismembered her body and lived with it for a month in their apartment. Eventually, the smell tipped some people off along with his gf not being seen by family in a bit.
The baby was ok though and was taken in by the girl’s family.
He went on the run, but was later caught and is currently in prison.”
No news article though. I have posted a news article with it before and got banned. Hopefully with all the info I gave you, plus someone guessed the state below, you can find it for yourself so I don’t get banned again for “posting personal information” by posting a public news article. Lol.
I’m all for taking stock of my life, but I’m glad nothing like this has forced my hand!
If you’ve had a close call in your life, share the details with us in the comments!
