How many stories have you heard about last-minute decisions that change the course of someone's fate?
You make a right turn and not a left and learn the road on the left was on fire?
We survive on pure luck sometimes.
Most of the time we never know it.
But when you do witness it, it gives you some perspective.
RedditorLong-Jeweler-5845wanted everyone to share how their lives at one point were spared. They asked:
"What’s your best 'I didn’t just dodge a bullet, but a tactical nuke' story?"
I've lost count of the amount of nukes I've dodged. Many have to deal with relationships. Obvi...
Gone
Wile E Coyote Wtf GIF by Looney TunesGiphy"I was once the last person to cross a bridge before it fell... looked in my rear view to see what the noise was to see open air where there should've been road... and some white faced people who were just about to cross as well."
Dazzling-Role-1686
Angel
"When I was 14 I went to my best friend's house for her birthday party. A 30 year old guy that worked for their parents asked her to tell me that he wanted to take me out on a date. I said I had a boyfriend. He seemed nice but he started following us everywhere and just standing back staring at us (they had a huge farm)."
"I got nervous and called mom to come get me. Months later we saw his wanted poster at our grocery store. He was serial killer Angel Resendez, the railway killer. Mom didn't believe me until it was on AMW that night and they interviewed my friends foster parents. Then she freaked."
missymaypen
The Bad Guy
"My mom's BFF had a son get out of prison. He was doing tattoos for a living. We lived in a state that still had tattoos illegal at the time, so he and his mom came to our house to give us a tattoo. I was like 18 at the time and I think he was in his early 20s."
"We were told he went to prison because (while he did have a drug problem at the time), he took the fall for someone carrying a f**kton of meth. His mom kept hinting (and eventually outright suggesting) I let him take me on a date. She swore up and down he needed a good influence like me."
"I'll admit, I did feel pressured quite a bit. His mom was one of my favorite people in the world and I felt like i was letting her down. But I was not feeling it. Dude was not attractive at all. Worst of all, he was covered in swastikas (that he claimed was to survive prison). I also found it really creepy that he kept oddly stroking my foot while doing a tattoo several inches above my ankle."
"But, we managed to end the tattoo party with no dates made. Cool. About 3 months later, I'm listening to the news as background noise and I hear her son's name mentioned, police are looking for him. He strangled his girlfriend and all four of her children."
Puzzleheaded_Storm79
On the Fence
"I’ve posted this story before but when I was a young child, I was outside playing with the hose by myself. A man appeared at my fence and asked me to come over. I walked over, he leaned down and picked me up. I started kicking at him and he dropped me almost immediately, then walked away. After that I ran inside, hid in my closet and never told a single person."
"I had almost forgotten about it, or thought I had imagined it until years later when my mom was telling me about how they recently solved a cold case of a man who kidnapped and murdered a girl around my age at the time from our neighborhood and left her body in a field a few miles from our house."
sheddingcat
Bad Woman
"Not me, but my mom - one day, a male coworker of hers asked her on a date. She was friends with him and liked him well enough, but she had a boyfriend at the time so she politely turned him down. he took it like a champ and jokingly said 'ah, you should dump that guy - I'll treat you much better!'"
"Less than a year later, he was arrested for murdering his ex-wife with an axe because she wouldn't let him borrow her car."
clovecloveclove
Well all of you sound like very lucky people so far.
Horrible
Celebrate Black Stars GIF by CAFGiphy"I had a two friends that were going to score some drugs. I almost went with them to get dropped off home on their way back. They were both killed, robbed, and set on fire."
SselluosS3191991
STAY PUT
"I was about 11 and my dad wanted me to come along with him to pick up some furniture about 30 minutes away. I made a huge stink about it, basically being an annoying little male adolescent turd, saying how I wanted to stay at home and play, I'd be really good, it was boring, etc."
"He finally got fed up and stormed out and told me to STAY PUT and he'd back soon. About an hour later, he comes home in a police car, pretty shaken up, and just reached over and hugged me hard. Turns out that he was driving down the highway and traffic got busy ahead, and this semi truck in the lane over tried to stop too late and jack-knifed."
"When it was coming to a stop from swerving all over the road, it fell over on the passenger side of the car, right where I would have been if I had gone along with him. The car was totaled (obviously), with the entire passenger side crushed down flat. Actually, he was lucky HE made it out alive. He never made another big deal about me coming along if I really said I didn't want to go."
bbergman1
Bomb Day
"I went to Boston U and lived less than a mile from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. In 2013, my friends and I had decided that we were going to walk down to the finish line to see the end of the race, after a 'light' 9am drink as is tradition for college students on marathon Monday. We got way too drunk and decided to go to McDonald's instead. Quite literally dodged a bomb."
RAWdangers
gunning for me...
"I was bullied pretty badly in middle school by this one kid. Before I could finish 7th grade, my parents and I moved to another state. On my last day in middle school, the kid who bullied me was unusually nice to me. Found out after my last day in middle school in that town that my bully beat a teacher with a metal baseball bat."
"Apparently he was gunning for me, and got frustrated that I didn't show up and decided to just take it out on a teacher. Last I heard, he went to Juvie for that."
YoureInMyWaySir
The End
Bbc Three Comedy GIF by BBCGiphy"My dad's story but basically he was trying to hitchhike back to his house when some kids (visibly drunk) pulled over to pick him up. Whenever he would reach for the handle they would drive off until they eventually just sped off down the road, went airborne over the next hill and crashed the car. They all died."
medkitjohnson
Run Dad
"My father told me this story. As a young child he was approached by a man who wanted some change to make a phone call. My father gave the guy some money and the guy said it was too much and that he wanted to give my father some change."
"My father got in the car with him so that they could go and get some change. While driving something seemed off so my father jumped out of the car at a stop sign and ran away. He didn’t think about it again until he saw they guy on TV years later. It was John Wayne Gacy."
mattibbals
The Walk Home
"I was a young teen, walking home from school. A man in a parked convertible called out to me for directions to a road close by, in the direction I was walking. He offered me a ride but I told him I lived right there and started walking up to the nearest house."
"He took off in the opposite direction. Later found out that a guy in a convertible was running girls on bicycles off the road and assaulting them. It may not have been a nuke, but it scared me enough to never hitchhike in a time when it was common."
GeeWhiskers
The Way he Looks...
"In my sophomore year of high school this guy sat behind me, he was a year older. He would look at me in this certain way. It was almost like interest but it was different. Couldn't put my finger on it. I caught myself a few times wishing he'd ask me out. Found out later he'd been torturing his little sisters and my younger sister for over a decade in some horrific ways."
"He'd assaulted several of his gfs and even tried to kidnap one. My best guess for the weird looks is I resemble my sister (who was his favorite victim) just enough and was even closer in age to him that it piqued his interest. Unknowingly had a slight interest in a child abuser/kidnapper. Shout out to social anxiety for dodging that one."
boklenhle
sold as ecstasy...
"I used to go to raves and take ecstasy when I was 19-20, in the late 90s. One weekend my friends went to a rave and I had to stay home to watch my little sister. About a dozen people in my friend group went, and ended up buying paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) sold as ecstasy. Half a dozen had seizures or convulsions and ended up in the hospital. At least one person I am still in touch with has severe kidney issues as an adult as a result."
throwaway1f3s4vc
Breckinridge
"Was snowboarding in Breckinridge when I lost control on some ice and smoked a tree, I broke my femur in half and the surgeon said if it would’ve broke a centimeter to the left it would’ve ruptured my femoral artery and I probably would’ve bled to death internally before ski patrol got to me."
jg23101
Shipping Out
"Not me but my Sailor Great Grandfather shipped out of Pearl Harbor on I believe sometime between December 3rd and 6th 1941, just a day or few before the attack that left 2400 people dead (2000 of which were Sailors)."
Randomest_Redditor
"Wow! Mine was on a POW ship headed to coal mines outside Hiroshima iirc, when American bombers sunk the ship. Lost his brother and a lot of other pows below decks but got picked up by a US ship instead of going to Hiroshima."
ElkShot5082
Stay Single
"Female coworker hooked me up with her hot friend, who liked me for some reason but was too scared to say so. We talked on the phone quite a bit for a few days, had a hangout time at her place one evening (nothing sexual, just getting to know each other), then her ex found out she was starting to see someone and begged her to go back with him. She did, and I didn't really care, because it was all so new."
"Found out a short time later, that they'd broken up because she found out he was cheating on her, and she retaliated by trying to run him over, as he ran into his apartment to get away from her. She'd crashed through his living room, gotten out, tried to fight him, got arrested/jailed, etc. This all happened mere weeks before she'd set her sights on me."
"After reading about what happened--via the internet, after searching for her hame (this was prior to Google)--I was so glad he'd begged her to go back with him. I eventually asked my coworker wtf, and she just shrugged and said, 'she thought you were cute, so I was trying to help."
Sumpm
Killing Days
"A friend of mine dated an ex cop who was an a**hole and ate all of her child’s food. He was later found to have cut up two women and dumped them on the side of the highway in suit cases. Luckily she broke up with him before his killing days."
TealTemptress
Nearly Smeared
"Not me, but my dad. When he was younger, he used to sell motorcycles for a living, and rode them frequently as well, never wearing a helmet. One day, he decides to wear a helmet for whatever reason. That day, a car t-bones him, he goes flying from his motorcycle and skids across the road. His helmet got sanded down from the impact and subsequent skid on the road. Despite having major back, shoulder, and hip problems to this day, without that helmet, he probably would have ended up as a red smear on the road."
SwipeRight4Wholesome
You never know when the Universe is saving you. So just be grateful.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.