"Something Was Pulling Me Towards The Exit": Intuitive Folks Are Recalling The Moments Listening To Their Gut Saved Their Life, And I'm Shaking
Note: This post contains mentions of death, murder, and violence against women.
Listening to your intuition could end up saving your life. I've come to understand this throughout writing about people who escaped eerie situations by following their gut feelings. Here are the top intuitive moments y'all shared that, to this day, still keep me up at night:
1."It happened August 1, 2007, around 5:30 p.m., three weeks after my husband and I got married. We were driving to the Mall of America to watch a movie, and were heading toward I-35 West highway. Then, my husband got this feeling it wasn't a good idea to go that way — it was rush hour. So, we took a different route. When we left the movie that night, we turned the radio on. The I-35W bridge had collapsed at 6:05 p.m. We would’ve been on that bridge."
2."I was living about five hours away from my parents and spent Easter with them. My plan was to take Monday off work and drive back that day, but for some reason, I decided to go back on Sunday night. At about 3 a.m. I woke up to a weird noise and hit the touch lamp next to my bed. It made a loud popping sound and turned off. Thinking, Hm, something isn't right here, I got up and grabbed the bedroom door handle. It was so hot that I immediately pulled my hand back. Once I opened the door, I was met with my entire apartment up in flames. The only ways out of my apartment were through the living room to the front door or through the dining room and kitchen to the back door, and I couldn't get to either."
"I used whatever strength I had to shove my headboard away from the window, broke the window out, and just screamed. My landlord was letting a guy illegally live in a storage room. He heard me and ran right down the block to the fire station. They got me out through the window and then put out the fire.
My living room had caught fire from a faulty electric outlet and it spread to the dining room by the time I got up. I was hours away from my family, had no money or ID, lost my cellphone and car keys in the fire, and it was only, like, 4 a.m."
3."I used to work in TV news and had to go into work at 6 a.m. on Saturdays. I don’t have my own parking where I live, so I had to walk to my car a block away. While I was walking, I suddenly got this feeling like someone was watching me. I looked to my right, across the street, and noticed a tall man walking suddenly disappear behind a tree. I stopped and waited to see if he'd continue moving, but he didn’t. Then, I saw his head pop out, and he looked right at me."
"I had two options: turn around and go back to my apartment, or run to my car. They were the same distance, so I decided to book it to my car — I didn’t want this man to know where I lived.
As soon as I made it to my car, I immediately locked the doors and looked out my driver side window. There he was, staring at me within feet of my car. I called the police. About a week later, he was arrested for robbing a man on that same street."
4."When I lived in Hawaii, I was part of a running group that met every Tuesday. One week, a new guy showed up. He was very friendly and all smiles. We had the same pace as we jogged, so we ended up running together for 10–15 minutes and talked. He was nice, but something felt...off. He was almost too nice. We met back up with the rest of the group, hung out, and had some drinks. When I went home with my boyfriend that night, I told him that the new guy seemed weird, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He continued to show up to run, and everything seemed okay enough. Days later, texts and emails started flying within our running group about him."
"It turned out that the guy was having an affair, and he had his mistress kill his wife. The crime had already happened before the first time he ran with us, but he wasn't suspected of being involved in the murder until about a year after it happened.
Search for 'Michael Walker, Hawaii.' You can read all about it."
5."I took a class on lighting in a theater. One day, I was using a single-person lift to put myself 20 meters above the floor to change one tiny thing on one light. As I raised the lift closer to the light, I had this strange feeling that got progressively worse. When I inspected it, literally every single safety thing that could be wrong on this very heavy light 20 meters above the crossroads of multiple walkways was wrong and about as wrong as it could be. It was a miracle this light hadn't fallen off and killed someone yet, because it was about to."
"Whichever idiot had managed to screw it up this badly also managed to touch the power coupling to the crazy hot light. The power coupling was melted and somehow still functional. It was a miracle the entire auditorium hadn't burned down whenever this idiot did this.
It was extremely scary to me as I'd been doing extracurriculars in that auditorium for nine years then and I don't think that light was touched in that entire time. So every one of the thousands of times I had used that path, my life had been in danger. Every other light in the auditorium was perfectly fine."
6."I was working on a radio system in the local water tower of a pretty remote outback town. It was a beautiful late spring day in October when I got there. But after about two hours, the bird noises stopped. The breeze stopped. I took my equipment out of standby and set it up as a live test, because I had the weirdest feeling I didn't have time to fully test it. Then I went outside to sit in the car. About 90 seconds later, there was a direct lightning strike on the tower I'd just left — it measured at the highest point of 200 km."
"It was literally the loudest thing I'd ever heard. Ever."
7."When I was 10 years old, my grandma was watching me and my younger siblings while our parents were out of town. We were eating pancakes in the living room, and my siblings were watching cartoons while I was reading the latest Harry Potter book that just came out the day before. My brother asked my grandma for more pancakes, and she started to get up. I was engrossed in my book, but out of the corner of my eye, I felt like she was taking longer than usual. She tried to get up, but her leg wouldn’t move. She tried to pick it up with her hands, but one of her hands wouldn’t move. I knew something was wrong, and I put down my book. Then, she fell out of her chair onto the floor. I screamed, and she tried to tell me that she was fine — that her leg had just fallen asleep and she had tripped. But her voice was coming out all slurred, and only half of her face was moving. I recognized signs of a stroke from The Baby-Sitters Club."
"I ran into the kitchen — she had no cellphone back then — and called 911. Well, first I called my best friend, the only phone number I could remember, and asked her mom if I need to dial an area code before 911. Then, I called 911.
Meanwhile, my siblings got the handyman who was mowing the backyard to come in and help out. The ambulance arrived and they took her to the hospital, and I don’t remember much else. My best friend’s mom must have somehow gotten hold of my parents because they did eventually show up at the hospital. She was treated so quickly that she made a full recovery and is still alive and in good health almost 20 years later!"
8."I'm a heavy sleeper, and never wake up until my alarm kind of thing. For some reason one night, I just had a weird feeling, so I woke up and got out of bed. I went out to the living room, which is upstairs in our house, and my husband had left the window open. I went to close it and saw my cat hanging off the outside window sill, trying to hold on, and panicked! I grabbed her and helped her in. She's an indoor cat, so we probably would have lost her even if she somehow hadn't been injured. I still have no idea why I woke up in the first place and went in there!"
9."During the first lockdown, I hadn't seen my dad (who lives alone) for three months, but we spoke on the phone every day. One night while I was drifting off to sleep at 2 a.m., I suddenly started feeling overwhelming anxiety. I was sweating and just felt like something was off. I couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to ring my dad since he's a night owl and would pick up... But to my surprise, no answer. I woke my partner and told him something was really off and my dad hadn't answered his phone, which had my anxiety running tenfold at this point. He suggested if he still hadn't answered the phone in the morning, we would drive over and check on him. Still, I couldn't shake this feeling, so at 3 a.m., my partner and I got in the car and drove three hours to my dad's home. When we arrived at my dad's house, I walked in to find my dad staring at the wall... He was gray and yellow in color."
"He was slurring his words and utterly confused about where he was. I immediately called an ambulance. He spent the next four weeks in the hospital with acute kidney failure from undiagnosed end-stage liver cirrhosis.
The doctor told me if I'd arrived at his home a few hours later, I would have been calling an undertaker and not an ambulance. Sometimes anxiety can be a lifesaving gift."
10."I worked as a bouncer in Missouri, and at midnight one night, I got sent to Walmart for some things. Driving down Highway 50, I caught a glimpse of a figure on the side of the road — ghostly corner of your eye kind of thing. I don't usually stop for strangers at midnight, but something in my gut made me slam on my brakes for that woman. I pulled over, and a young woman approached my passenger door. She was hyperventilating and really freaked out. I couldn't understand her, so I just told her to get in my truck. As we sat there for a moment, she tried to talk. Just then, a van pulled up behind me, still on the side of Highway 50, and a man jumped out and approached the passenger side window that was still down. He started grabbing the girl and cussing me out. In my biggest voice, I calmly explained he needed to back off. She's wasn't leaving my truck. I told him, 'I have no idea what's going on, but I'm taking her wherever she wants to go.'"
"We talked on the way to the hospital. She was from out of state. Some guys she met through a friend assaulted her and dragged her out to a field. She was beaten until she played dead. She escaped from the back of the van when they stopped for gas."
11."I was taking my little cousins ice skating around Christmas. I was young and in college, so I didn't feel like a very experienced driver yet. I was at a light about to make a left turn, but something told me not to pull all the way out, even though the light was green. On instinct, I glanced to my left. This huge SUV barreled through the red light. If I had trusted the light instead of my gut, that car would have plowed into my back seat, where three children under 10 years old were sitting."
"I always glance left at intersections now."
12."One day I was in a parking garage across the street from a courthouse after filing a document. I got off the elevator where I think my car is parked and it's nowhere to be found. I wandered around, pushing my car keys and listening for a beep. After about a minute, I noticed a guy walking around too. He didn't appear to be following me, but I kept an eye on him. There was no one else on that level except him and me, and he was giving me the creeps. Finally, I determined my car must not be on that level, got in the elevator, and went down a floor. I got off the elevator and kept an eye out for a second. The guy didn't appear so I brushed off my feelings as paranoia. I started walking around, pushing my car keys again. Then as I turn the corner, there's the guy again. This time, I know he's following me. Again, we were alone on the level. I head for the elevators and notice he's heading that way too. He's on pace to cut me off and I start to panic."
"Just then, the elevator doors opened, and two guys in suits walked out. I ran up to them and said, 'There you guys are! I've been looking for you all over this level and the one above. Where the hell did you guys park?' and I laughed. The guys looked at me weird, but to their credit, they didn't even blink and one of them responded with, 'Oh, sorry, we're on this level, but we brought Tom's car instead of mine, and I forgot to tell you. We're parked over here.' And they led me away.
As we walked away, I saw the guy who'd been following me stop, stare, then leave down the stairs beside the elevator. Once he's gone, I tell the guys what had happened, and they helped me find my car. It was on the first level. I just never got close enough to hear it beep. To this day, I know that guy was just waiting for me to find my car so he could do something nefarious. I avoid parking garages at all costs now. If I'm forced to park in one, I take a picture of where I park, so I don't get lost anymore. And now I always carry pepper spray on my keychain."
13."My cousins and I went surfing one morning at a busy beach. After a few waves, I got this really eerie feeling. The waves were crap, so we were just hanging out on our boards. The feeling turned into a pit in my stomach. A few minutes later, my cousin got smacked by a shark tail — we saw the fin come up out of the water as it left. Ten years later, I was surfing at a different beach with my cousin and son. I got that same terrible feeling again."
"I told my cousin, and he immediately said, 'Let's get out.' When we went to walk our boards up to the car, another surfer got bit by a shark. I haven't surfed since." —candacea4271c944b
14."My brother was walking home when he was about 7 or 8 when a man pulled up, demanding to take my brother to the hospital — he was limping since he previously had foot surgery. The man was starting to push my brother into the car when our neighbor, whose kids we used to play with, suspected something was up. She yelled at the man and took my brother inside her house. The police didn’t catch the guy, but years later, the guy and his car matched the description of the man who kidnapped Steven Stayner a short time later, which was a famous incident in our parts."
"Life could have been very different if our neighbor hadn’t been paying attention."
15."A few weeks ago, my baby woke up in the night. I settled him, but instead of going back to bed like normal, I sat outside his room waiting for him to settle. I thought he wasn't settled because the movement icon on the monitor was flashing. It also flashes if the cot is empty of a breathing creature. I poked my head in, thinking, Why is he moving so much? Except it was silent in his room. The voice in my head sounded. Something was not right. I went to put my hand on his back and found he wasn't breathing."
"I managed to get him back, but I think I had a tiny stroke from the fear. I've never been more terrified. If I'd gone back to bed, my baby would not have woken up the next morning. I am grateful for mom instincts, and I listen to them hardcore now. I don't give a royal shit if people think I'm paranoid. My gut saved my boy."
16."My apartment doesn't have laundry, so I do laundry at my dad's. One day I texted him and asked if it was OK to come over. He hadn't responded in a couple hours, longer than if he had been taking a nap. Normally, I probably would have just let it go, but a strong feeling told me to go anyway and just apologize if I woke him up or something. When I got there, he wasn't well. He was out of his mind, as if he had a stroke or Alzheimer's. I called 911 and my sister. Dad spent a week in the hospital. He had a severe bladder and kidney infection that turned into sepsis, which sent toxins into his brain to the point that he was delirious, incoherent, and had to be restrained."
"He's OK now and taking better care of his health, but the doctors said he would have died that day if I hadn't gone over there. I trust my instincts a lot more now."
17."I was 15 years old and babysitting four younger cousins. I was watching TV in the living room when there was a knock at the door. It was late. I knew it was odd. I approached the door with a 'Hello?' A male answered and asked if someone random was there. I said no. They then said, 'Can you open the door? I need a light for a cigarette.' I replied no again. I walked back into the living room and saw two faces trying to look down the side of the curtains. Then they started knocking again. I walked into the kitchen to arm myself. As I walked in there, there was already someone half inside and another behind him. I went into protective mode thinking I wouldn't let them get to the children, so I picked up a large knife off the bench."
"I charged toward them, and they stumbled and ran off. I was shaking but picked up my cellphone, while the other two were still knocking on the front door. I called the police and explained I had four children in the house, and there were four people trying to break in. They told me to remain calm and go somewhere safe with the children, like a bathroom I could lock until the police arrived.
I shut the back entrance and returned to the front. I looked out the side of the window, and the men were standing there menacingly at the bottom while I was on the phone. The police came with helicopters and police dogs, but the men were never caught."
18."My mom and I have fought like a cat and a dog since I was 4. We are the same person basically and still love each other dearly. One morning, we fought before I went to school. I screamed that I hated her before slamming my dad's car door and him taking me to school. While driving there, he told me an old adage: Never leave a conversation mad because if you die, the person's last memory of you would be you saying you hated them. Or if they die, my last memory of them would be me hating them. I broke into a panic attack and told my dad he needed to call my mom immediately. He had left his phone at home so he told me to go to the front office and ask to call my mom when we got to the school. The office tried my mom's personal phone — voicemail, voicemail again. Told me to go to class and if she calls, they will call me to the office. I had a horrible feeling in my stomach at that point and yelled at them to call the school she teaches at."
"At first they refused, but I broke into a screaming/crying panic that I needed to speak to my mom right away. They did it finally and told me she isn't required to arrive for another hour; though usually she came early to help out at school and hadn't shown up yet. That was strange for my mom.
She works in a school in the inner city. Teachers had been harmed walking to and from their cars. Her school sent the resource officer for some reason and they found her. My mom had been mugged, was unconscious, and bleeding. She would've been there for another hour or until she regained consciousness, if she did."
19."I was helping a very close friend of mine back from the bar because he was too drunk to walk. When we got back to his apartment, he started to make a move on me. I dodged him, and he burned me with the cigarette he was holding. I was petrified. He started pulling me toward his room. Suddenly, my phone started ringing."
"I was getting a call from a friend I hadn't spoken to in almost a year. I answered, and immediately said, 'Your brother is in the hospital? I'll be there as soon as I can!' That's how I got myself out of that situation.
I called my friend back. He said he had gotten this sudden gut feeling that I was in trouble, and he needed to call me right away."
20."In high school, I was at a party with my friend. Randomly at about 11 p.m. I started to feel really sick to my stomach. I told my friend that I want to go home, and she said okay. We had another friend who was our ride, but something in my gut told me to call my brother and ask him to come pick us up. The next day, we found out the guy who was going to drive us home had been drinking and got into an accident. He totaled his car. The whole passenger side of the car was gone. If we had gotten a ride with him, we would have died."
21."When I was 11, I was reading a book one night, when I got a horrible feeling. I felt like I was going to be sick. My stomach and chest hurt. My grandma popped into my head. I was super close with her my whole life, and we had this strange bond where we knew when something was wrong with each other. I ran out of my room and told my mom I had a bad feeling about Grandma, but she was on the phone. Mom hung up and looked at me. She was pale. She had just gotten a call from my aunt, who was playing bingo with my grandma. My aunt told my mom that she'd called 911 because she thought Grandma may have had a heart attack."
"We hurried to the hospital. My grandma was stable when we got there, but she had to be transferred to a larger hospital, since there was no cardiologist at that smaller emergency room.
The paramedics loaded Grandma into the ambulance, and told my mom that if she wanted to keep up, to put her hazards on and follow them. They had the ambulance lights on, but no siren. It was about a 15-minute trip. My mom didn’t keep her hazards on, and just casually followed behind.
We were cruising along, when this icky feeling came over me. I told my mom that she needed to speed up. She told me no. I told her something bad was happening with Grandma and she needed to go faster. She told me Grandma was in good hands and was OK. I started crying and begged her to speed up. She agreed. Just as she got up close to the ambulance, the sirens came on and they sped up. We caught a glimpse of the paramedics in the back with Grandma — they were performing CPR. She had a massive heart attack in the ambulance at that moment and flatlined.
We were both in tears, keeping up with them, all while watching through the little window in the back. Grandma had an emergency open heart surgery that night. She made a quick recovery, and lived much longer than they expected."
22."One time, my grandpa took me and my cousin with him to the gas station to get diesel for his tractor. We lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't much else to do. I rode in the middle seat and my cousin in the passenger. We were about 12 years old at the time. When we got to the gas station, my grandfather parked at a pump and headed inside, leaving the keys in the truck. Just before my grandpa walked inside, an elderly man on a bench outside stopped him and pointed at us. I couldn't hear them, but I got a weird feeling about it. My grandfather walked inside to the register after the short interaction. The man hadn't taken his eyes off of us from across the parking lot. Then, he got up and started walking toward us. I started panicking. My cousin did too. As soon as the man reached the truck, he opened the driver's side door. My cousin unbuckled and told me to get out as he hops out. I start mashing my buckle release...but it's stuck."
"The seat belt was locked firmly against me from my panicking. My cousin leaned back in and tried to push the release, but realized it's stuck too and then immediately hops out. The guy just looked at me and grinned as he reached for the keys in the ignition, like he was enjoying my sheer terror. It was nothing short of pure fucking evil. It still gives me fucking chills.
The next thing I noticed was my cousin leaning back in with a hammer he grabbed out of the bed of the truck, screaming that he's about to hit him. The old man immediately threw his hands up and said he was just joking, then climbed out. He walked behind the station just as my grandfather came out none the wiser.
When my grandfather got back in, we both tried to explain what just happened but we weren't making any sense at all to him. He was so old and unsuspecting of that kind of thing in our area, and we were in shock. He said the man just asked if we were his 'granddaughters' but he didn't pay much attention to him because the man seemed deaf. That creep thought we were two little girls because of our longer hair and planned on abducting us!"
23."My cat had to see a vet to have her teeth cleaned to make sure she wouldn't get an infection. After we woke up that morning, and as I was getting ready and putting on makeup, I suddenly got the feeling I had to spend the time before going to the vet cuddling her — something told me I might not get the chance ever again. I gave her some of her favorite snacks, kissed her, and snuggled her up to the very second we had to leave. I said goodbye to her at the vet, convinced it was just my anxiety acting up. When I got home I started cleaning up her toys, because I thought it would be too painful to do so if she passed away. Half an hour later, I got the call that she had suffered a heart attack due to the sedation. I’m thankful my intuition led me to spend our final moments that we had together loving her as much as possible."
24."My dad and I were really close before he passed away. I was looking for a nursery in Qatar for my 2-year-old daughter. I visited a couple of them near our home, and came across one established in a mall. When I arrived in front of the nursery's glass door, I felt like my dad was with me and said, 'Don't go inside. The door is not wide enough.' Then, I had a weird feeling. I got out of there quickly, and I never went in. A week later, the nursery burnt down. Everybody there was trapped inside. There was an electrical failure that started a fire in the shops in the floor below. The staircase was around the elevator, and there were only these options to get away. They had to be rescued them from the roof."
"It was too late and nobody made it. My dad saved my daughter."
25."My husband and I drove to a different state to go to a friend's wedding. It was about a 10-hour drive for us and we got to the hotel around 9 p.m... Avengers: Infinity War just came out that day, and my husband really wanted to see it. I did too, but we were so tired from the drive. Normally, I would have convinced him to just go to sleep and we could see it in the next couple of days. But I just felt like we should really watch it, so we found one playing at 9:30 p.m. and went and had a great time. When we drove back to the hotel, there were cop cars everywhere and a big firetruck. The hotel roof caught fire and was still on fire when we'd returned. I stupidly ran into our room to get our luggage, and there was so much smoke. If we hadn't gone to see that movie, we would have been sleeping, and lord knows if we would be here today."
Marvel / Via giphy.com
26."My sister and brother-in-law just had a baby and were throwing a big party with about 100 guests of family and friends on the baby's 40th day, an auspicious time in India. The party was on a Tuesday, and many people insisted to do it the next day as many people in India don't drink or eat meat on Tuesday (a religious day). But my brother-in-law insisted; he felt it should stay on the correct day and not the next day — whoever didn't want to eat or drink could do so. The day after our event, the venue was attacked by terrorists. No one at the party venue survived. If my brother-in-law had not decided to stick with the originally planned date, we would've all been dead, too."
27."Some years ago, a new co-worker invited me to her 21st birthday party. When I got there, I instantly felt like there was a magnet between my shoulders pulling me toward the door, and I knew I couldn't stay for long. After half an hour, the feeling became so overwhelming that I told the birthday girl I was tired and went home. When she came in for her next shift, she told me, 'You are so lucky you left when you did.' About 20 minutes after I left, the whole night went straight to hell."
"Her roommate was mugged while making a beer run, several of the other guests' car tires were slashed, and a guy who'd been trying to chat me up assaulted one of her friends."
28."I remember for several weeks I felt something was off, but I could never pinpoint what it was. I felt as if someone was following my every move. I had regular customers at the coffee shop I worked at. One stood out. He'd ask for my number over and over again, give me large tips, and hang around longer then he had to. Every time I rejected him, he became more persistent. I told him I was a lesbian, which is true, but even that didn't deter him. I was creeped out but I ignored it. On the bus ride home, as soon I got off, I noticed someone behind me was following the same path I was, shortcuts and everything. When I fast-walked, they fast-walked. Then when I ran, they ran. It wasn't until they were out of sight that I went in the direction of my apartment. The next day, I asked my boss if I could see the security footage from last night. To my horror, that very same guy had been waiting around the corner of the store and only moved when I left to go to my bus stop."
"The further we looked at past footage, the more sick I felt. The same guy had been waiting outside at night, every night, for the past three weeks. That day, I waited for him to come in while my boss called the police. As soon as he came in, the cops questioned him.
He wasn't nervous at all. He was convinced that we were in a serious relationship and had memorized my work schedule, bus schedule, and even what stops I frequently used, so he always knew where I was. As it turned out, my gut feeling of something being horribly wrong was more accurate than I imagined. I found out later he had done this to other women before. With one of them, he broke into her house. It scared the hell out of me knowing how far he was willing to go for a 'relationship.'"
29."I was in the mall once with my family when I was younger, and I had a soda bottle I was going to throw away. I even asked my mom if she knew where a trash can was, but I still didn’t go to throw it for some reason. One minute later, people were rushing, screaming, and running to a corner."
"I later learned that there was a fight in the mall and guns were pulled out. It happened by the store I had just been in. I even remember being in that store thinking, 'Why am I here? I don’t need to be here,' before leaving. If I went to throw the soda bottle away, I would have been separated from my family in a really bad situation. I think about that sometimes."
30."When I was 15 years old, my mom (a nurse) picked me up from school and casually mentioned she had a headache. She was nauseous and her left arm ached. I stayed home sick the next day, and when I woke up around 11 a.m., she mentioned that her symptoms hadn’t gone away. A switch in my head flipped, and I freaked out. I knew in my bones she was dying."
"I told her to go to the hospital, and she acted like I was nuts. I called 911 twice; the second time they threatened to send the police over for making a prank call. I was so hysterical my mom made an emergency appointment with her general practitioner just to shut me up.
She brought me into the exam room with her just to prove to me she was OK. He gave her an EKG. The test showed she had just suffered a major heart attack. We found out later that it damaged about 80% of her heart. I was finally able to calm down after he read the results because I knew someone would help her now. She was an RN, but this was in the '90s, and she’d been taught the MALE heart-attack symptoms."
31."I caught some creepy guy trying to expose himself to my 11- year-old daughter. It was a gut feeling to go check on her. I was in another part of a store and walked up just in time. Always follow your instincts and trust your gut."
"My daughter was fine and could not understand why I was freaking out so much — she was too young to explain it well. Thank goodness she had no idea. Her head was in a book, and I saw his arm moving back and forth from behind. When I walked up, it was still in his pants, but the intent was clear. She’s 16 now and has figured it out.
My husband was there with us, and that guy literally came up to him and told him he was sorry! I still cannot believe that part. I was outside calling the police, and my husband tried to follow him out of the store. The guy ran off across the street but later came back, and we got his license plate. I gave a statement to the officer, and they followed up on it. They came by our house to tell us they couldn’t really do anything because I hadn’t actually seen 'it' if that makes any sense, but they put him on some sort of list. Apparently, he told the police he was taking some weird medication that made him do it. Ugh. Such a nightmare."
32."I was driving with my sister on one of the main roads in our town. I was in the left lane, and we were coming up to a hill where you really couldn't see over the other side of. I suddenly felt like I needed to move to the right lane, so I did without even looking. A car came speeding the wrong way in the lane I'd just been in. It would have been a head-on collision."
Giphy / Via giphy.com
33."My mom and her cousin were at the Boston marathon the year of the bombing. They were cheering on my mom's other cousin who was in the race. They were on their way to watch the rest of the race at the finish line, where one of the bombs would go off, when my mom's cousin stopped in her tracks. She said that she knew something bad was going to happen, and that they should just head home instead. They were on the train back home when the bombing happened. They didn't even know what went down until I called my mom later that day in tears after watching the news. My mom was almost another victim of that horrible tragedy, but her cousin saved them that day because of her intuition."
"It still makes me cry when I think about it."
34."At the peak of the pandemic, I was working from home and my boyfriend wanted to surf with me during my lunchtime the next day. At first, I was really reluctant of going because it just felt so uncomfortable. It felt really weird and sad, and I was so close to saying no, but the next morning I woke up with a feeling that it was the last time we were going to be together. So, I went to surf with him. He drove a few hours to the point, and I was working from the car the whole way, I had meetings after meetings, but I felt like I was supposed to be by his side. I had a meeting at the exact time we were going to surf, so he went alone, while I stayed in the car working. That day, it was stormy and there were big waves. He was an experienced surfer, but something felt off. Twenty-five minutes later, I heard his voice and something pushed me outside the car to look for him."
"I looked, but didn't see him or anyone in the water, so I started to panic. I kept looking for him or his board, but nothing. Then, I saw him. He was in the middle of the waves without his surfboard, and he looked exhausted. I ran to the lifeguard screaming for help, and they couldn't see him, so they asked me to point the direction and went after him.
It was a long way back to the sand, and when he got back, he was so tired he couldn't talk. He'd swallowed too much water. The rope had broke, and he couldn't swim to his board because of the current. He said he was thinking about me all the time, calling for me. He'd spent more than 40 minutes trying to swim out the current.
I don't know what happened, but I just felt something was really wrong. He is good now, and still surfing a lot."
35."In college, I had this overwhelming feeling right before an exam that I needed to go home. I started the test, but couldn’t concentrate. I turned in my paper after five minutes and took a cab home. I found my mom bleeding in bed. She had a cyst in her uterus, and it ruptured. She had to have an emergency hysterectomy, but she was otherwise perfectly healthy."
36."My papa had colon cancer and was supposed to be having surgery. We all got to the hospital in the morning and they told us he had tried to get out of bed and fell, and ruptured his ulcer. We all got in our cars to go home. I got a couple miles away from the hospital, and something didn't seem right. I went back, stayed with him until he woke up, almost 10 hours later. Turns out he had been over-sedated, which is why he fell in the first place. We would have never known about the over-sedation unless I had gone back."
"He couldn't get any nourishment after the stomach rupture, and unfortunately died about a week afterward."
37."My family was meeting my grandma's new boyfriend one night. This was the first man she was seriously seeing after my grandpa died, so it was a big deal. The moment I met him, I got the weirdest feeling in my stomach that told me something was off about this guy. Basically, he failed the vibe check. I told my mom this on the way home, and she said I just needed to get used to him. Later on, my mom began to pick up on his bad energy as well. So she googled him. He had previously been arrested and convicted for killing his wife, and trying to dispose of the body."
"Still, my grandma stayed with him. He was manipulative AF. My mom told her he was not to have any contact with us, but he tried to friend my sister on Facebook. My mom called my grandma screaming that she'd never see us again. Grandma started crying, so he tried to argue he was hacked and even called the police. I don't know why. One of the officers took my grandma aside and said he was dangerous and probably a psychopath. Then she broke up with him."
38."I had just had my second baby and started a new 'dream' job. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong. One night, I told my husband he needed to take more pictures of me with the kids so they would remember me. It was usually me taking all of the pictures of the family and I was often missing. He took a few random shots of me with the kids at dinner time. Then, I had a strong compulsion to clean out all of my closets, drawers, and 'stuff' that I collected over the years. I threw away all the clothes with holes, organized everything, and threw away anything that I might not want someone to find in the event of my death — they call it a 'Swedish death clean,' and I was ruthless. I even put together baby boxes for the kids with notes. Two months later, I was diagnosed with late stage breast cancer."
"I am still alive five years later, after years of treatment and near-death complications. Sometimes I look back at those dinner photos I made my husband take, and I can see the worry and sadness in my eyes."
39."I was visiting my grandad at his care home. I knew he was going to die soon and that it could be any day at that point. But I had a bad feeling that particular day. It was raining, and my footsteps sounded like a ticking clock as I headed to the care home. I visited him every day, and that day he wasn't acting any different, but I stay longer than I should have — it was a one-hour walk back to my place and already dark. Just as I was about to leave, he died peacefully. At least I was with him. He was even smiling."
40."In high school, my friend’s dad managed a motel in a kind of seedy part of town. They lived in an apartment behind the lobby, and occasionally, he’d allow my friend to spend a day or two in one of the motel rooms if she had friends over or whatever. One night, she and I were in one of the rooms, and someone knocked on our door. We assumed it was her dad, so she almost opened the door, but I told her to look through the peephole first. It was some strange man we’d never seen before. That was over 30 years ago, and I still think about what might have happened if she had opened that door without checking the peephole first."
41."After getting married, I got pregnant. At seven weeks, there was no heartbeat, and my doctor said it was a missed miscarriage. By 11 weeks, I hadn't miscarried, so I had a dilation and curettage procedure. A few days later, I had lab work to check that my HCG was negative, and the result per the obstetrician said that it was. I had a weird nagging feeling about that though and one pregnancy test left, so I took it. Per the test, I was very pregnant, but I shouldn't have been. My OB's office laughed at me and brushed me off. I kept insisting that something wasn't right. Turns out, there was an error at the lab, and new lab work showed my HCG was still in the 10,000s. I had had a partial molar pregnancy and a rare form of cancer developed in my uterus called choriocarcinoma."
"Because I listened to my gut, I was able to get early treatment."
42."Several years ago, I kept having the same hyper-realistic dream about a specific date and an accident at my mom's job at the time. It would show the date, time, and accident over and over, and it never changed — Feb. 13, 11:30 a.m. The stairs to the basement would collapse while they were bringing water jug refills down, and the jug smashed full force where my mom sat. I begged my mom not to go to work that day. She said I was 'psychotic and delusional like my grandma.' She ignored what I said and went to work that day. At 11:25, she went downstairs to smoke and get lunch like always, and saw her co-workers bringing down the water jugs. She glanced at the clock, and it read 11:29 a.m. She stood up and walked a few feet away to another vent. As soon as she did, the stairs collapsed, and the 60-pound water jug smashed down right where her head would have been."
"She never doubted me again."
What are the dangerous moments in your own life when your intuition, or someone else's, kicked in and saved your life? Let us know in the comments.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
