25 Times People Felt Something ‘Off’ And Ended Up Saving Themselves

There’s a small voice in our heads that’s always talking to us, which sometimes we listen to meanwhile other times ignore. But when our gut instincts yell at us, we tend to stop and take notice. Over the years, we’ve come to recognize that our gut is often trying to save us from some perceived peril that we are not even aware of as yet. It’s a natural survival instinct that may even save your life sometimes.  A recent Reddit question went viral for asking, “What was your biggest ‘We need to leave... Now!’ moment?” Folks responded with firsthand accounts of their closest calls because good intuition caused them to bail out at the last second. Scroll to check out some of the most hair-raising tales revealed in the gallery below. 

#1 Grocery shopping with my grandma, she’s tired (normal for her) but she’s getting a bit slower and dragging her leg more than usual. At the checkout counter I saw her face was a little droopy and I said we are leaving now and going to ER. They gave her a bottle of water for the car ride which she ended up choking on and vomiting up all the water. Called ahead to ER so they were ready and they took care of her ASAP, she was having a stroke and they were able to help her quick enough so that she didn’t have any long lasting issues.

Image source: anon, Mikita Yo

#2 Was 15/16 at a house party with my good friend, another girl.

Image source: AliceLovesBooks, Jacob Bentzinger There were some gatecrashers who turned up ( which weren’t unusual at London house parties) but these guys were older, and there was just a vibe. A girl I vaguely knew, was very drunk and being surrounded by them and I asked her if she was ok and she told me to “F**k off, I’m fine.” I looked at my friend and said to her “I’m gonna call my mum and dad to come get me do you want a lift?” (My parents were always amazing and said to me that if I was at a party or out and for ANY reason didn’t want to be where I was I could call them and they would come and get me) My parents turned up, coats on over pyjamas and took us both home. Apparently half an hour after we left, someone was stabbed, the girl we had asked earlier was sexually assaulted and lots of stuff was stolen and people beaten up and held up at knifepoint. I had such a feel in the air that I’ve hardly felt before or since and KNEW we needed to not be there.

#3 When I was a paramedic I was in a basement taking care of a shooting victim. The fire department had not arrived yet the cop, having cleared the basement, was not with me at the time and my partner was in the ambulance getting some equipment I needed. As I was kneeling down working on my patient with 100% Focus I felt a hard steel object placed on the back of my head. It was a shotgun. The shooter apparently was still in the basement and I was alone with him. He told me he shot this guy for a reason and gave me an opportunity to leave. I left.

Image source: HenryRN, Mikhail Nilov

#4 I work as an engineer in a data center cooling plant. We’re responsible for basically everything in the building- mechanical, electrical, hvac, plumbing.

Image source: blind30, Pixabay So the engineer I’m relieving tells me there’s an odd sound coming from the Con Ed vaults- this is where these huge transformers are that step down from 26,000 volts or so to a voltage the building can actually use- we are not allowed in those vaults, they’re locked and only Con Ed has they key. So he leaves, and I take a walk by the vaults- I had never actually heard electricity arcing through the air before, but I knew I was hearing it then. I called Con Ed’s emergency line and told them to get out there ASAP- a crew of two guys show up, they seem calm and disinterested in the elevator on the way up- “it’s probably just a contact chattering” they said. We get off the elevator and start heading down the hall- the sound was WAY louder now, we weren’t even near the vaults and there was no mistaking it. Both guys stopped dead in their tracks and kind of hunkered down. I saw the color drain from them. Wasted no time getting back in that elevator. If you’ve never seen video of a large transformer explosion, go check YouTube. These transformers are not like the ones you see up on utility poles, they’re as big as a couple of trucks stacked on top of each other. Anyone on the floor when one of them cooked off would be gone, and we have 8 of them.

#5 We were sitting on the sand at the beach, talking and having drinks. I looked up at the sky behind my friends and saw this huge, dark, ominous cloud mass moving towards us.

I got up and said “guys, we have to leave NOW. Huge thunderstorm coming right at us. We have about 5 minutes!” We managed to reach the car but had to sit in it for a good hour while the wind and rain ravaged everything around us - trees were left bare, benches were upturned, trash cans were dragged for half a mile. The beach club tents were blown away and some people were seriously injured when stuff fell on them. It was all over the news that evening. My friends still talk about how I “saved” them that day - most people didn’t move from where they were sitting, even though we tried to warn them. Image source: cherrytarts

#6 A couple of friends and I were outside a house party talking. I noticed out of the corner of my eye something dart behind some bushes towards the end of the block - maybe four houses down? It was dark out so it was hard to tell. We stood there a bit long and I swore I saw something again move to a tree a little closer.

Image source: itsmelk74, Chris F This wasn’t the best neighborhood (heck my whole hometown isn’t the safest) and I knew a couple people at the party were involved in some stuff so I don’t know if that entered my mind or what, but I got immediate goosebumps. I said “let’s go- NOW”. A couple of my friends looked at me weird, but later one told me they knew by the look on my face something was up. I apparently look possessed. I had my keys so we ran to my car and got in. I didn’t even let anyone get their seatbelts on - I just hit the gas. Based on the news stories less than probably 5 minutes later a group of people shot up the house we were at - the others standing outside were severely injured or killed. Turns out a couple guys at the party were thought to have killed someone’s family member and it was a revenge thing. This was over 20 years ago and I still get nervous if I’m standing around outside - especially if it’s dark.

#7 When I was about 16, I went to visit my grandmother at her place. The smell of natural gas was intense, even though Nana didn't seem to notice it much.

Image source: Back2Bach, photobac She was groggy - sort of half-asleep - not her usual responsive self. So I made her get out of the house at once and opened the windows and doors. I called Dad and he reported it to the gas company, who sent inspectors right away. They shut off the gas (valve in the street) immediately and sent a repair crew to fix a leaking joint in the gas supply pipe. The inspector said that if I hadn't acted then and there, the probability was great that there would soon have been an explosion.

#8 About a decade ago, I was driving my Miata with a friend to a track about 4 hours from home. We left after dinner the night before so we could wake up there and get an early start. About an hour from our destination, 11pm a crazy summer storm hit...heavy rain, high wind gusts, lots of debris. I told my buddy that early 90s windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, I couldn’t see s**t, and I just felt like I was white knuckling the steering wheel.

Image source: rr_0223, Ralph W. lambrecht I decided to hit the exit, we’d get some late night food at a Waffle House and wait out the storm. We sat down and I had a TV in sight and I was casually watching. Almost immediately, a weather map came up and showed a tornado pass right over where we would’ve been a few minutes later had I not exited.

#9 I've told this story before but it's been awhile, and may just get buried, but here goes.

Image source: CrewmanInRed, Caleb Falkenhagen I was out in the country late at night taking some long exposure photographs of the Hale-Bopp comet as it approached the sun (which was marvelous by the way). I had driven out of town and just picked a dark, empty farmers field to setup. Nice and dark. I'm out there for a couple hours when I get this massive feeling of "I need to leave now." I pack up my camera, tripod and lawn chair, throw it all in my car, get in and start the car. When the lights of the car come on I see the wolf that was sitting 20 feet from where I was positioned, just sitting there staring at me! I've never gotten bigger chills in my life.

#10 My father's story:

Image source: Bemkaree, cottonbro studio 1999, 3 adult males entered our family store in July wearing heavy trench coats. They spread out through the store and my father caught a glimpse of a gun under their coats. He called the police and while waiting for a call back, my mother grabbed the children and ran out the back door. Once we got a call back, an employee answered the phone and asked who called the police. The men ran out of the store, went down 2 doors, robbed the laundry mat, and killed the clerk.

#11 I've wrote about this before..I was in a mall in Indonesia & 2 tourists seemed to be having problems communicating with the cashier at a bookstore, so I helped translate.

Image source: eraser_dust, RDNE Stock project The wanted to buy me drinks to thank me. Told them it’s not necessary & I have to get back to my mom soon. They told me to meet them for dinner. Told them I have to have dinner at home. They told me to sneak out & meet them after dinner. At this point, a bookstore staff noticed something was wrong and went up to question them. My sister & I dashed off while they were distracted. Continued wandering around the mall & realised they were following us. To see if we were just paranoid, we ducked into a lingerie store since we figured 2 men won’t usually need to go lingerie shopping together. They followed us in. Ran so quickly back to the jewellery store our mom was at. The store had intimidating security guards & I guess that stopped those guys. I was 11, my sister was 10.

#12 So I was waiting at the train station to pick up a friend of mine. I was early so I decided to stand in the sun right outside of the station. A guy with a bicycle walked up to me asking in broken English if I knew how late the train would arrive. After I answered the question he stayed around and starting talking to me.

Image source: Elesiaaa, Dom J Now I know that's not weird at all but the things he asked and the way he acted and looked just gave me a creepy vibe. Eventually he asked if I would walk with him while he dropped his bicycle of. I didn't want to because the place to store bicycles at this station is very secluded and to be honest I didn't want to be alone with this guy. So I noped out and walked into the station. He started yelling at me. Calling me names but at that moment the train came in and it got very busy. So he left. A few months later I read this article in the local paper about a girl being [attacked] at the station. They had put a drawing of a guy next to the article as he was not yet caught. It was the same guy. To this day I'm very happy I didn't go with him.

#13 About two months ago I’d stayed up past my usual bed time and as soon as I got in bed I smelled something odd and was hearing some inconsistent banging and clattering from downstairs. I don’t live in a great neighborhood so none of this was unusual but I got out of bed to check anyway and saw flames licking up the side of the building. Yelled at my wife to get out of bed and threw on some clothes and we high-tailed it out. Our building has a shared wall with the next and that one had an apartment on the ground floor fully engulfed by the time we made it outside, ended up condemning the whole building. I was the first one to call 911. Have been jerking myself awake in the night pretty consistently since then.

Image source: UglierInside, Michael Noel

#14 Grand Forks, ND April 17th 1997.

Image source: Threk, United States Geological Survey I had spent the morning in the shadow of a 12' wall of sandbags that I was helping to build up to a River Level of 49' Around 2pm I went back to my apartment to eat before heading into work, and I turned on the Radio to try and catch the flood forecast. They announced that the river was currently at 48' 6" and rising at a rate of half an inch per hour. For weeks the NWS kept repeating the crest would be 49 feet in early May. Now they had changed the forecast! They were now saying the crest would be 49' 6" in the first week of May. I immediately began packing, and loaded up everything I would need for several weeks before going into work. I worked at a convenience store and I made sure to fill my gas tank before I began my shift. Before my shift was over the evacuation announcements had begun, and we were swamped with lines of cars fueling up to leave the city. 36 hours later on Saturday morning I was among the massive line of cars in the largest pre-Katrina flood evacuation in the U.S.. I didn't get back to my apartment for months. The "We" in my "We need to leave now" moment was the entire city.

#15 About three months ago there was a shootout at my office park. My next door neighbor was robbed and beaten, but his partner arrived during the robbery, waited for the robbers to exit, and then opened fire on their cars with an AK47 in the parking lot. (turns out my neighbors weren't Amazon resellers, they were d**g dealers).

While the robbery was going down I felt sick to my stomach and just knew I had to GTFO. I left, and was about to walk by their place when I had a bad feeling and went back inside to pee. While I was peeing my heart was racing, and I didn't know why. I ended up dribbling all over my leg, I was practically hyperventilating. Then the shots rang out - two bursts. I hit the floor and hid in the bathroom. When I finally came out there were people all over the parking lot and the air stunk of gun smoke, but everyone was OK. I ran all the way home, two miles. Watching the security tapes later, you see me walk in front of the shooter twice, as he sits in his car waiting to ambush the robbers. If I don't go back to pee I'm right in the middle of it all. I also could have left as soon as I got the feeling, and would have been clear. But since I didnt get out fast enough, going back to pee probably saved me. I'm still shaken up, and I'm still having nightmares. Talking about it here helps. Trust your gut! Edit: here is an article about it with a video. At the bottom there's a video where you can see the shooting. I am not on this video, I am back inside at this time. I didn't know they caught the bastards until I just looked for the article so that is a nice thing. But I'm crying from watching it. I'm still really scared and it's been several months now. Thank you all for the kind comments. It really means a lot to me. I feel ridiculous describing this as trauma when others have been through real trauma during wars, but it's very real to me and I hate it. I should add, one positive outcome: my brother-in-law has been checking in on me regularly since the incident. He just sends me a text to see how I'm doing. It's really touching. I already liked him a whole lot but even more now. Image source: UsedTowels09

#16 Posted this before, but was very late to the party

Image source: TheBigPapaNorm, Pixabay I was on a date with a girl hiking a trail system that I knew like the back of my hand, something felt weird but I shook it. We went in around sunset, we were going to swim in one of the deep pools in the creek. Maybe 2 miles into the trail I get the feeling again, and she's talking her head off, but i was just listening to everything around me. I told her to stop talking, and she looked at me very concerned, i just put my finger to my lips and listened. I heard something familiar but i couldn't place it. We never stopped walking. We came to the Arroyo just before the creek pool, and I heard it again, by this time I knew. I told her we were going to walk to the clearing where the Arroyo was at and turn around. She told me she heard something weird. As we came to the clearing we stood there like statues, dead silent. Her nails cut my arm from gripping it so hard. Then around 15 feet from us, the biggest mountain lion I've ever seen crossed the clearing with 2 of its young. She looked at us, and as our eyes met... my soul left my body. And I felt her grip tighten around my arm even tighter. She stopped and so did her babies. I'm guessing she sized us up...and then just kept going. The babies kept turning around looking at us, but ultimately they just slowly crossed the top of the hill and that was that. We turned around and told everyone we saw on the way in that there was 3 mountain lions on the trail, they all turned around and left. That was the first time I was ever scared out in nature. I didn't have a handgun on me, I had been there a hundred times. She told me the sound she heard was a deep purring, and that was what I kept hearing also, I just hadn't put it together.

#17 Was in Mexico City with family including two daughters. Grabbed a cab on the street around 10:00 pm to take us back to the hotel. I was somewhat familiar with the area since we had been there four or five days already. Cabbie totally passes the hotel district and starts heading away from the part of town we were in. Streets were getting more and more residential. I demanded that he pull over and we GTFO and walked back to the hotel, probably 3 or 4 miles. He was probably just padding the fare, but I was not going to take a chance on being kidnapped so we flew.

Image source: Choose_2b_Happy, jaғar ѕнaмeeм

#18 Sknyliv airshow catasrophe

Image source: Polylactic, urtimud.89 I was 5ish at a time, so it's my dad's story more than mine. You can google the details, but long story short, my dad saw the plane jolt in the air, and he realized that something went wrong and started running and yelling at everyone else to run. I was sitting on his shoulders, so he just took off with me. The plane crashed into the crowd killing 77 people, 35 or so children among them. Not us.

#19 Woodstock 99. Felt the energy of the grossly over packed crowd, the building rage, and looked my friends and said we need to go. They stayed, I left. Shortly after fired and riots started and my friends lost everything they had with them. Tents, clothes, food, everything. When you have 300k people shoulder to shoulder in 104degree humidity and charge $4 for a bottle if water and have half as many bathrooms as needed, you're gonna have a bad time.

Image source: PeggieGuenther, Zak Bentley

#20 In China, on a school trip. Wandering around night-market stalls of fried bugs and bull testicles, in a group of 10 or so high-school age kids.

Image source: cmori3, BERK OZDEMIR A 50-60ish y.o. Chinese man engages us in conversation, claiming to be the curator of a local art gallery. Do we want to check out some paintings? Sure, we were bored and had lost our appetite pretty quickly anyhow. Well we get to the 'gallery' which was a semi-rundown 5x5m building. The Chinese man talks to us from the doorway, inviting us in to see the paintings which are downstairs. The building is in the middle of a large paved courtyard, right next to a popular tourist destination. It's safe, right? Peering through the doorway, no artwork or obvious function to the building is visible. An entrance lamp is broken with its glass scattered over the doorway, and inside shoddy steps lead to a dank unlit basement. One of us interrupts Chinese man's sweetalking (come down, see painting) to grill him on the broken glass. "Don't worry, many paintings. Beautiful" "No, tell me why there's broken glass". At this point we're all exchanging glances, when I get the urge to break our collective stupor by yelling "CHEEEESE ITTTT!" As a group we turn tail into a sprint, covering a hundred yards or so before we slow down to laugh and crack jokes about kidnapping and organ black markets. Glad it was the best memory from my trip and not the last one.

#21 Driving to Disney with hubs and 2 little kids (4&5). Stopped at a gas station in Tifton, Ga at about 10pm. Wander in a little bleary eyed with the 2 kids looking for the bathroom.

Image source: scoutmom6098, Felix Fuchs Clerk looks at me funny and points. While I'm in there I hear "She's got 2 babies with her man. Just let them pee and go". I grab both kids and walk straight back to the car with only a small head nod to the clerk. Hubs was done pumping gas and about to go in himself. I yelled for everyone to get in the car, I would explain later. As soon as we pulled out I called 911. The operator told me they were already on route and to vacate the scene, took my info and wished us a fun trip. Walked into a gas station robbery with two little kids, peed and left with no issues. Bad gas wasn't that bad of a guy and let us go.

#22 At a party when I was about 19. I was on the top floor with my friend and he mentioned to me that he and the guy in the corner had been in a pretty nasty fight about a year ago.

Image source: Economy_Cactus, cottonbro studio That guy is giving us some eyes and staring us down. My friend said not to worry, but I did not like the vibe this guy was giving. I saw the guy talk to his friend and send him out of the room. I told my buddy, nope we are leaving now. Much to his protest, as there was a girl he liked at this party. I practically ran down the stairs, grabbed our other friend by the hood of his sweatshirt and ran to the car. As we are backing out of this long country driveway, I see the guy, his buddy and 4 or 5 more of them run out of the house with baseball bats and they chased us down the driveway. So damn glad we got out of there when we did.

#23 My friend and I, both females, met up our first time back home from college. It was a surprisingly nice day outside in the middle of winter so we decided to get lunch and eat outside.

Image source: BlackHawk218, Mizuno K We found a park that had no one there and were sitting at a picnic table catching up when I see a scruffy looking guy in a large work van with no rear windows pull into the parking lot. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him at first but I noticed he was moving around the outside of the van for a bit and he kept looking our way. He finally walked down the sidewalk toward us and passed by our picnic table and walked around the backside of the restroom building to look down the hill on the other side of it. Very obviously casing out the place. He walked back to his van and me and my friend were discussing what we were going to do while I watched him open up the back of the van and start digging around it. He made a call on his cell phone and a few minutes later another male pulled up in a different car. He got out and started talking to the first guy, who not very discreetly pointed our direction. They immediately started walking toward us and my friend and I scooped what was left of lunch and fast walked out of the place while keeping an eye on them. One of the times in my life I could literally feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. It could have been nothing, but even now I feel pretty certain that they had something planned and I am glad we left.

#24 Whilst driving on the highway, I stumbled upon some pretty big rocks in the middle of the road (luckily I had my high-beams on), and I had to come to a full-stop in the middle of the highway. There wasn't an embankment anywhere near me and this wasn't a rocky area so I was initially puzzled as to where the rocks had come from... then I noticed a guy in my rear-view mirror coming out of the bushes... It was at this exact moment where I was like 'we need to leave, now!'. I threw my car into reverse and gunned it... nearly drove over the guy in the road behind me; did a j-turn and drove in the opposite direction on travel on the highway until I found an offramp. This was about 11pm at night on a segment of the highway which is notorious for hi-jackers. Turns out that the hi-jackers place massive rocks in the road at night and when you drive head-long into the rocks and get out of your car to inspect the damage, they then pop out of the bushes and rob you at gun-point, and drive off with your car if it is still driveable. Luckely I wasn't a victim that night. God only knows what they would have done to my gf. Good old S**thole Africa.

Image source: LFP_Gaming_Official

#25 Visiting Kowloon in Hong Kong, I ended up walking all day until my feet were killing me. It got dark outside and I was tired, so I decided to drop by a decent looking bar for a drink and a moment to rest my feet.

Image source: TawnyaChavera, HONG SON It was all empty except a group of serious looking local men in suits. They kept leering at me the whole time, the most awkward beer I ever had. None of them said a word, but I got the message: "You're not supposed to be here, gwailo.".