Life is full of challenges, there are no questions about that. But sometimes we're confronted with circumstances or situations that could ruin a life, sometimes in dangerous ways. When you escape them, it seems like you "dodged a bullet." For these people, they got away from situations, either real or imagined, that left them feeling grateful for what they have in their lives. And in some cases, they really did dodge literal bullets.
Dodged A Rocket, Not A Bullet
“I was deployed in Iraq in 2006-2007. I came out of a building on base for a quick smoke. As I was about to light up, I saw two of my buddies come out of our barracks about 200 feet away. I decided to head over and chat with them to smoke and catch up.
As I got to where they were, a rocket landed and detonated at the exact spot I had been standing. I would have been dead, but instead, I am happily married with three awesome children. I’m currently laying on my couch with my Christmas tree lighting up the room and watching The Office with my wife.”
When Being Cheated On Is The Best Thing That Could Happen
“I was 20 years old, in college, engaged and living with my girlfriend of 5 years. She’s hot, but a little crazy. She has to finish a project while I head across town for Thanksgiving dinner with the parents. Finish early, grab food for her, and when I get home, the door is dead-bolted and chained. She had a guy in the apartment. Have a breakdown on the front steps. Get angry, break a window, bawl my eyes out, ask for the ring through the chained door. Took years to get over, but 15 years later I’m happily married with kids, and she’s divorced without a real job and a serious drinking problem. Tried to contact me a couple times, but never responded.
Totally dodged a bullet.”
Don’t I Know You From Somewhere?
“This happened to my psychology professor. She’s probably 65 or so and attended the University of Washington in the early ’70s when Ted Bundy was doing his thing and murdering women.
One of the ways he’d ensnare his victims would be asking young women at bars if they needed a ride home and then kidnapping them. She was at the bar towards the end of the night and had called her friend to come to pick her up when handsome man Bundy, unbeknownst to her at the time, sidled up and asked her if she needed help getting anywhere.
She rejected the offers at first but when her friend still hadn’t shown up around close, she took Bundy up on his offer. He’d been pretty successfully hitting on her at that point.
They were closing their tabs when her friend finally got there, apologizing because a fight with her boyfriend had held her up.
She later recognized Bundy from news coverage photos.
A very dangerous bullet dodged.”
A Job She Definitely Didn’t Want
“I landed a job interview at a fairly prestigious local museum last year.
The curator/interviewer never even bothered to introduce herself. Luckily, I recognized her from photos so I broke the silence with, ‘Mrs _? Nice to meet you, I’m me’. Um, that’s a bit of an uh-oh.
I walked into the room we’d be using for the interview and she started BERATING two employees who had been working there. They left with their heads literally hung in shame. Uh-oh.
She picked up my CV, looked at my address and asked which part of town I lived in. I gave an honest reply, which was that it was not the best neighborhood, but it was all I could afford at the time, and she straight-up laughed in my face. UH-OH.
She glanced at the rest of my CV and told me they didn’t hire anyone with so little experience. She escorted me back to the entrance, and by that point, I was so eager to leave I just grabbed my coat and didn’t bother putting it on before heading for the door despite it being pretty cold out.
She turned to the receptionist and started mocking me (‘You see this? Who goes out like that in this weather? HAH!’). It was the most attention I think she paid me during the whole bizarre five-minute ordeal.
I just kept walking. I can’t imagine the sort of crap her employees go through.”
A Bad Morning Becomes A Good Day
“This was about a year ago. I had been biking to work every day for a year, crossing a couple of busy intersections. There’s always time for bikes to cross so it was never a problem getting across when the lights turned green. This one particular morning, when trying to get ready to leave for work, everything just got messed up. I dropped my breakfast, spilled tea on my shirt, couldn’t find my keys, and so on. I tried to make up for it by rushing the other parts of my morning routine, so I could get out of the door. I grabbed my coat and helmet and went on my way.
I was five minutes late at most, so it was manageable to catch up on my bike, as my commute to work is downhill all the way. As I came upon the first busy intersection, there were a firetruck, several ambulances, and they had put up some white cloth barriers so onlookers couldn’t get a glimpse of the incident.
Apparently, a truck had made a right turn right as the cyclists were getting a green light and this young girl was completely crushed just shortly before I got there. She, unfortunately, died from the complications pretty fast.
It messes with me how it was just a series of mistakes that made me escape that possibility of getting crushed under a truck.”
An Obsessed First Date
“I was supposed to go on a date with a guy. It was our first date and we hadn’t yet met in person yet. I canceled last minute due to having to work late. In retrospect, it was rude to cancel, but I was poor and needed the OT. He wanted to meet at 9, I said I probably wouldn’t be able to because of work as it was the busy season. He said, ‘If we can’t meet, let me at least talk you to sleep.’
I didn’t reply, he said okay, ‘Let’s shoot for 9. I’ll call you and then come get you.’ As expected, since I told him I probably wouldn’t be able to meet, I was still working at 9 and wasn’t able to text him. I got off at 10:30 and went to bed. I saw a few texts from him, but was too tired and fell asleep.
I woke up at 1:00 am to a phone call. It was the third one, apparently, from him. I also had about 40 text messages ranging from telling me I was a horrible person to confessing his love and telling me he wanted to restart our relationship. Except, we weren’t dating. We hadn’t even had our first date yet. Prior to me canceling on him, he got angry that I wanted to drive myself. I always drove myself first few dates. I don’t like getting in cars with people I don’t know. But he was insistent on picking me up and super upset I wouldn’t let him. That gave me a skeevy feeling and was part of the reason I chose to work OT that night.
Something felt very, very off. I was going to go through with the date because I don’t like ghosting people, and I had in the past and I was trying to work on that. So when OT came up, I seized that opportunity to get out of it.
Anyway, he called me a few more times, saying I owed him a date, and he was upset I didn’t reply much during the day when he was awake. I was working 9-5 with lots of OT as it was the busy season. My cubicle was right next to my manager. I didn’t really have time to reply to any text messages.
I texted him saying I was sleeping and to leave me alone. He called again crying and sent me a ton more messages. It was intense, and I ended up blocking him. I think that was a dodged bullet.”
Literally Dodged A Bullet
“A bullet went straight through my house. Followed the path of it as it went through the front window through the wall and out the back window.
I looked at it later and couldn’t believe it missed me. I had my head down as I was finishing up cooking dinner. If I was standing straight up, it would have gone through my skull.
It turns out the new renters across the street were dealing illegal substances and the local gang got word of it and decided to come by with six guys and have a less than friendly talk. When these guys got out of their vehicle, the guy across the street pulled out an AK-47 and started shooting. Nobody got hurt somehow, except for my house.
It was a decent area of town but it was like 30% rentals. Dealers will live anywhere they can afford, even nicer areas of town if they have the money.”
A Missed Opportunity That Ended In Success
“I got a job offer, which would have been a huge promotion, career jump, and the money at that point would’ve been like 50% more than I was making. The only thing was it would’ve required a fairly small relocation.
I told the hiring manager to give me 24 hours to discuss it with my wife. I was around 99% on the yes decision but I needed to get her involved because of moving the family, even though it wouldn’t be that far.
The next day, the hiring manager called me and says the offer is on hold because an internal memo came through, some major thing is happening. The hiring manager said she’ll call me when whatever is going to happen finishes up. No problems, I can wait.
48 hours later, the company that had been in business for nearly a century declared bankruptcy and started moving to liquidate assets. Within 6 months, the entire company is gone and the workforce had to find new jobs.”
A Close Call With A Tire
Shutterstock / ESB Professional
“When I was about 15, I was hanging out with my dad at our family’s small business when he went to get the mail. Only a couple steps from the mailbox, he dropped one of the pieces of mail. When he bent over to get it, a passing truck blew a tire and the tire went flying through the air right over my dad’s head. The wind from its passing blew his hat off. It ended up knocking down a few boards of a fence behind my dad’s work, where it eventually stopped.
Had he not picked up the mail, he’d be dead. He wouldn’t have had time to take more than a single step before getting clocked. That tire was moving fast. His walk was a straight line. The tire flew in a straight line. It moved directly behind him, so he would have been in its path no matter what. Bending over made it go over his head.
The panic I felt is indescribable. If he hadn’t dropped that piece of mail, the tire would have easily taken his head off.”
Time To Go
“My (now ex) girlfriend asked if I wanted to go hang out with some friends. Didn’t particularly like her friends but had nothing better to do. We drive around a while and finally park in front of a house but nobody gets out. We sit for what feels like hours.
‘What are we doing?’
‘Waiting for somebody.’
‘Who?’
‘[Coke dealer] so [friend] can get a g.’
‘Ok yeah take me home NOW.’
Next day she goes back out with the same friends. I stay home. Turns out the ‘friend’ was an undercover cop and arrested everyone in the car.
From what she told me afterward, basically, they were going through multiple channels to score this. Took basically all night to set a pickup and because they kept dragging their feet trying to get a solid arrest, I essentially blew the operation by making us leave. They came back without me and arrested like 3 of the people there. As for my ex, that pretty much ended the relationship. We were pretty much over long before that but we were hanging on for convenience.”
A Close Call With A Rock
Shutterstock / Militarist
“I fell off of a mountain while I was in the Army during training. I bounced down the side of the cliff and skidded to a stop at the bottom. At first, I thought I was dead, but it was just the wind knocked out of me. I took a shuddering breath and patted myself down, and feel something wet on my left thigh. I figured I’m bleeding. I couldn’t turn on a flashlight because it’s night and we’re on patrol. I radioed back to the platoon at the top, and they said, ‘Uhhh…do you need a Medevac?’
But I figured I’m in one piece and maybe I could get back up top before I bled out or something.
So I scrambled up the cliff (it’s very steep, but if you spread-eagle you can get up it) and at the top, my squad threw ponchos over me to check my leg with light. Nothing. Not a scratch. My pants and legs were wet, but there were no cuts. And then I found a big hole punched right through the canteen that was right next to my kidney, and all the water glugged out onto my leg.
If it was couple inches over, I’d have been shut off like a light switch with a rock through my kidney. Bullet dodged.
I was, briefly, legendary. Dudes started taking bets on what it would take to actually hurt me. I had several other dumb, self-inflicted accidents that ought to have killed me already.”
A Mysterious Savior
“I was crossing the street at night leaving my dorm heading to the student union. The street was completely dark, dead silent, and empty except for me. I was listening to music, not loud, but just enough so that I could still hear my surroundings. Out of nowhere, I look to my side and a car was barreling down the street directly at me. It was almost as if they were driving without their lights on and only turned them on 100 feet or so away from me.
I didn’t have any time to react, but someone grabbed my right shoulder (I saw their hand in my peripheral vision), pulled me back, and threw me to the ground out of the way just in the nick of time. The car drove off without even stopping to see if I was ok. I was a bit stunned, but I turned my head around to thank the person who had pulled me backward, and there was no one there. There was no way that someone could have run off that quickly in the three seconds of time it took for me to hit the ground and turn around.
To this day, I have no idea who/what pulled me back that day, but I definitely would have died on impact.”
Probably A Dangerous Job
“I interviewed for this job that would require me to drive around 200 miles into Mexico from the border in Arizona to this manufacturing plant about once a month. Traveling is fun for me, so it seemed like a perk.
I went through the interview with only meeting two people and wasn’t given the chance to look around. I kind of had weird feelings when I talked to the people and seemed to get an offer really quickly, which is kind of odd but whatever.
The offer wasn’t all that great, and in the long run, it just didn’t feel right, so I decided to keep looking. It turns out about a month later, one of the employees that drove into Mexico was run off the road, mugged, and had their car stolen.
Not saying it could have been me but always trust your gut feelings, friends. Also, my current boss is from Mexico and he told me I made the right call.”
Dogs Are Most Important
“I had an offer to buy my company a year or two after I started my own business. The offer wasn’t enough to retire on, as it was just $250k, BUT I would have to move to Las Vegas and take over their land development, plus there was a pretty good salary attached. I went out there, drove all around for a week, looking at houses, etc. My house here in Texas would have cost at least $500k out there. I didn’t want to rent an apartment because of my big dog.
I turned down the offer. Two years later, the company shuts its doors and everyone is laid off. Apparently, there were entire subdivisions with homes people walked away from, giving them up to foreclosure.
I’m still here, I still have my small business and some years are better than others. There’s always a lot of stress, but I’m working for me!”
“Conspiracy Theories Saved Me”
“One winter during my freshman year of college, two friends and I decided to smoke and take a late night munchie run to Taco Bell. While heading back to campus that night, we stopped at a red light and the two friends in the front seat began arguing about conspiracy theories, naturally a great high conversation starter.
The two friends got so into the argument that the driver didn’t realize the light had turned green until a tractor-trailer slid on the ice through the red light and the intersection. The car in front of us was narrowly missed and if we had gone, we would have definitely been hit and killed. Probably the only time in my life that I’m happy to say I have friends that are conspiracy theorists.”
Literally Dodging Bullets
“I was still doing my infantry course on the range. While half the platoon shoots, the other half is in ‘the butts’ where you operate targets and count hits. The range was over, and the flag went up to mark safe after some radio conversation.
I had to pee so badly.
So naturally, very smart 18-year-old me decides I’m gonna go pee on the backsplash berm. Of course, we’re all in camo and the shooters are 300 or so meters away, so they definitely don’t see me or the other guys doing the same thing as I am.
Next thing I know, I’m hearing loud cracks all around me from the bullets closely missing my head, and then the thumps from the weapons in the distance. Sand splashes up all around me and it’s a good thing I didn’t have to poop. All I can do is fall down and roll down the hill. My pants were still down, but luckily I didn’t pee all over myself! We all have a chuckle about it before realizing how badly the shooters messed up.
And that’s how I dodged a bunch of bullets! Literally.”