Ever been in a situation so seriously or deadly, leaving immediately is the only way to survive? Hopefully, the answer to that question is no. These situations are terrifying, and sometimes do not end well. Luckily for these Redditors, they got the memo and got out of a scary situation quickly.
People on Reddit shared the time when they left a dangerous situation before it was too late. Content has been edited for clarity.
“Not My Circus, Not My Problem”
“My dad was a nuclear engineer for Ontario Hydro. He had made several complaints that the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant was not updating their inspections of the heavy water containment. Nothing was done. My father knew there was going to be a high-pressure test scheduled for August. You know what he does? He scheduled his three-week summer vacation to begin at the end of July.
On August 2, 1992, Pickering had a heavy water leak.
So, I’m watching the evening news and the President of Ontario Hydro is giving a press conference. He’s making it seem everything is fine. Then as soon as that press conference is over, my phone rings. It’s the president of Ontario Hydro asking where my dad is because they got to figure out how to clean up this mess. I said he’s camping way up in the Cape Breton Highlands of Nova Scotia. He asks if my dad brought his cellphone with him and I’m looking at the cellphone sitting right there on the kitchen counter, so obviously not. And even if he did bring it with him, there’s no way the mountains of Nova Scotia had cell phone coverage in 1992.
He tells me to call all my relatives in Nova Scotia to track him down, which I tried, no luck. There was a great big nuclear spill and it was not his problem.
When my dad finally did turn up two weeks later he was all, ‘Not my circus, not my problem.’
Like he knew exactly what was going to happen and the people who ignored it can deal with it themselves.”
“I Had To Pull Over”
“I was driving back to school after Thanksgiving break in the rain about eight years ago. As I passed by an exit, I see a pickup coming down the entrance ramp next to me really fast (like recklessly fast).
I think to myself, ‘I better get ahead of this guy so I don’t have to deal with merging with him.’ So, I put my foot on the gas.
About 10 seconds later, I look in my rear view mirror to see the pickup about 100 feet behind me spinning across all four lanes. Then a semi, which was trying to swerve to avoid him, collides and smashes him straight into the barrier as it turns fully sideways across the highway. HUGE bang sound as the pickup basically disintegrated. I had to pull over at the next rest stop just to calm down.”
“We Gotta Get Out Right Now”
“I was at a college party and underage. The ‘host’ had no idea the party was going to happen because it was set up by her roommates. She was not pleased. The girl who set up the party had been talking trash to her two friends all night about the host. The host returns from work and is upset. The two girls the party planner has been taking trash to decide to start some trouble with the host, then try to fight her, but some guys throw them out. They’re hammered and mad, so they go to get their boyfriends.
Their boyfriends return with them, and come in to try to start some trouble of their own; only it turns out the host‘s boyfriend is this huge bouncer who looks like he spends about 12 hours a day at the gym. These idiots try to fight him, and he messes one of them up right off the bat, and we toss them both out, and lock the door.
Naturally, they decide to start trying to break the door down. One of them punches through the glass. This dumb-dumb is bleeding all over, but still trying to get in. Meanwhile, both of these idiots’ stupid girlfriends are cheering them on, even though they clearly see they are about to get their buts beat.
At this point, the host calls the cops. This is when I turn to my underage friend and say we gotta get the heck outta here.
We head to the kitchen basement, and as we are headed down the stairs, some other guy comes running up the stairs, passing us, carrying freaking chefs knives in each hand!
Now, panicking, we find another of our underage friends, fall-down wasted as could be, in the laundry room. We tell him what’s going down, that the cops are coming, and we gotta get out right now. He panics, stands up, and climbs over the washing machine to hide behind it, breaking some hose in the process, which would later lead to the basement flooding.
Our friend would not come out from behind the washer, so we decide we have to abandon him and save ourselves. We climb through a basement window, above the kitchen counter, breaking a little swivel fan in the process, and flee through several back yards until we find my friends car.
We speed off to a McDonald’s down the street, trying to calm down, when we get a call from our friend who had hidden behind the washer. He’d followed us through the window after a few moments and needed us to come get him. We do, and then he realizes he’d lost his keys in one of the back yards, so we go looking for them. Eventually, we find them and after a while we head back to the party.
The cops had come and arrested the guys trying to break down the door. It turns out one of the two girls had a warrant out for her arrest, but she had escaped.
We helped clean up a little (there was a lot of glass to sweep up, because they had broken a few more windows) and called it a night.”
“They Were Thinking I Was Going To Walk Home”
“I was visiting Belgium with my dad a couple of years back. I love arcades and found one in Oostende where we were staying. I was spending a couple of hours of my free time in there while my dad was around the corner in a sports bar watching football.
I was playing a game of Pinball when I noticed this guy who was just hanging around near me, not really doing anything. Just staring in another direction towards some games. I finished my game and started to leave and he followed me. I noticed this and stopped and pretended to browse some of the prizes you can win with tickets. He stopped as well and pretended to look around.
At this point, I swiftly walked straight out the arcade. He followed me and as soon as we were on the street, a guy leaning against the wall joined up with him and followed me about 10 feet back. These two were the worst muggers ever and I picked up on it straight away. They were obviously thinking I was going to walk home (if I was local and even lived there) and wait until we got out of the city centre to try something.
I went around the bend at the end of the road and straight into the sports bar where my dad was. They didn’t follow me in and just kept walking past. I breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed the rest of my evening.”
“I Was Shocked At What I Saw”
“It was 2010, Athens, Greece. I was working as a software developer in a company. Since I do not have any personal stuff going on and we’re basically a two-man show (me and my boss/owner of the company), I do customer support. I write code and I manage our servers, meaning that I’m working 12-14 hours a day. Most of our clients are in the United States, so my working schedule is properly adjusted. I come to work at 11am and leave as early as 11pm or as late as 1-2am.
I had two regular breaks: one around 3pm for lunch and one around 9-10pm for dinner, which I always eat at a sandwich/coffee shop across the street.
One day, that was no different from the others, I go out for dinner. I was still baffled about a programming issue (a bug that I couldn’t identify or something). With my head down, I cross the street towards the bank while trying to solve my problem in my mind. When I’m next to the bank, I looked up and was shocked at what I saw.
The bank is literally on fire. A group of people wearing masks hold big metal sticks are pummeling the bank’s window glass (which already has a hole). Once there is another hole, a Molotov is thrown inside the bank and now everything is on fire inside. Keep in mind that I was standing right in front of the bank. The Molotov was thrown by a guy that was standing five meters from me.
I look to the burger shop across the street trying to understand whether there is a chance that I could make it there so that I can eat (I’m starving and my brain is not assessing the situation properly).
In the middle of the road, there is a guy in a mask standing in front of a car. The guy in the car, clearly frustrated and probably terrified with the situation (the bank next to his car is on fire) starts moving the car prompting the masked guy to move out of his way. The masked guy raises a metal stick and threatens the ‘fascist’ driver that he will break his windshield.
And that’s the moment that it hits me: I need to get the heck out. I slowly step back, turn around and cross the street. After 10-15 minutes, the masked guys were gone and a firetruck was extinguishing the fire. 15 minutes after that, I was eating my gyros.”
“There Wasn’t Much Activity”
“I was doing charity work in high school, just outside of a smaller mountain city in Guatemala (Jalapa). We took one afternoon off to head into the city and check out the markets and whatnot. We were riding around the city in the bed of pickups trucks (there was about 15 of us; it’s extremely common there) and we noticed there wasn’t much activity and a lot of the shops were closed. A local who recognized our organization started yelling when we drove by and flagged us down, so we stopped. He was in the middle of setting up a roadblock and basically told us to get the heck out of the city as fast as possible.
Reason being, there was a big protest/riot planned for that day against Canadian mining operations taking advantage of the surrounding regions. This is a small, almost third world, militaristic Central American country. Every single one of us was Canadian. We could have very easily become the perfect bargaining tool for these rebel groups. Needless to say, we got out of there as quick as humanly possible.”
“Walked Away Into The Night”
“I went home from college the summer before my senior year. I met an old crush of mine and she invited me to a party. I walked to the address and it was this horrible, broken down house in a bad part of town. I went inside and recognized most of the people there as old co-students from high school. I had a good time drinking and smoking with them (I was pretty straight lace in high school).
I couldn’t find my crush, so I went exploring the house. I found her a few other people shooting up some heavier substances in one of the rooms. I’m not a fan of being around intravenous illegal substances, so I immediately left. I was only one house away before three cop cars started coming toward the house. I casually sat down on the other houses stoop and took a smoke break. I watched people in the party get arrested until the cops were all looking away and walked away into the night.”
“Everyone Was Looking At Me”
“A few years ago, I was having a conversation with a pretty big balls, chest out chin up friend of mine. I asked him about a part of Dublin where he came from and if he ever saw any violence there, as the area had a terrible reputation and always put me on high alert when I found myself there at night.
His response was, ‘You’re a 27-year old white man. There should not be any street in the world that you should be afraid to walk down.’
I mistakenly took this advice with me to Rio de Janeiro.
While there, I became pally with a few international dudes who had an insight into some underground parties in the city. I was to join them to one party in the Santa Romano Favela one evening. At this time, the favela was unpacified. I was to take a bus from the bottom to a location at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the bus that was to take me to the top, and so I decided I would walk up the hill.
The noises were numerous with lots of shouting, but I could discern that none of it was directed at me. Until, a woman who I gather was a lady of the night in a tank top, mini skirt and high heels began pointing at me and shouting. Then, I quickly realized everyone was looking at me. People started getting out of their bar seats, some to come out and shout at me others to enter their homes. Motorcyclists began to circle me while shouting at me in Portuguese like the men and women at the path side. I quickly turned around and without running, but walking at a pretty fearful pace. I made it far enough back down the hill without any incident of violence.
Considering the increasing claustrophobia of the incident, I gather if I had stayed on route I would have at the very least been forcibly removed from the favela, if not possibly worse.”
“That Little Spot Was Our Only Hope”
“We were vacationing and kayaking in Colorado. We were driving out of Aspen heading back towards the Arkansas River area. The pass that goes between the two is very narrow and winding; there are multiple signs stating the maximum trailer length, something like 24 feet or so. Not far out of Aspen, we start up a long straight and steep hill when I noticed a loaded 18-wheeler with a 50-foot trailer careening down the hill towards us. The brakes were smoking and he was hauling. I knew there was not enough room for the both of us because on the left side was the rock walled mountain and on the right was a guardrail and a huge drop off of several hundred feet.
We were on the right side. I quickly looked around and found this tiny spot I could stop and back in to. I was driving a big F-250 and pulling a small trailer with boats and gear. That little spot was our only hope, so I slammed on the brakes, jammed it into reverse and hauled it backwards. I somehow didn’t jackknife or run into anything, just as the truck came down the road. I thought it was going to hit us and knock us off the guardrail, but somehow he managed to just miss us. The air shaking the truck while we were right next to that cliff was terrifying. Good thing I can back the heck out of a trailer.”
“The Hostess Tells Us Need To Hide”
“I was visiting family in California when I was 15. I was hanging with my cousin and we got invited to his friends’ friends party. My cousin, his friend and I were all freshmen in high school. His cousins friend was an 18-year-old senior who was throwing a small party. It was like 10 people in a small two-bedroom house hanging out. I was straight edge, so no drinking from me. There were other guys there and a few girls. It was kinda lame since I wasn’t into the scene.
Anyways, suddenly the hostess tells us we need to hide.
We hear a car tires screech and doors open and slam. I look out the window and see about five dudes tatted up and real jacked popping out of a car. They were pulling weapons out of the trunk. I jumped into the closest with my cousin, his friend, and one of the other guys. Hostess says it’s her boyfriend and he’s in a gang and REALLY jealous.
We hide for a bit. Guy is screaming, saying one of his friends drove by and said he saw a bunch of guys over. He’s running through the house kicking things and yelling for us to ‘just come out.’
The guy with us gets uneasy and just freaking bolts out the window. My cousin starts to follow him and I hold him back. Forget that. After a minute, I go to peek out the window. The dude got caught and all five of the guys are beating him up in the front yard. I grab my cousin and out the back door we go running in the opposite direction.
I was too young to get the stuffing kicked out of me by gangsters when I wasn’t even having fun to begin with.”
“It’s Everywhere”
“I was at a house party with a few friends, where pretty much everyone from our college year was invited. One guy, who was affectionately called ‘One Drink Davey’ had probably downed about two pints of Stella within the hour. I personally knew he was just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Nevertheless, we all sat down to play ring of fire. That’s when I saw it; his hand raised to his mouth and his eyes closed.
I bolted for the door. Just as I make it past the door frame, I heard a familiar splash and everyone screaming. Fifteen minutes later, I thought I’d go back upstairs to assess the damage. Oh my god, it’s everywhere– but not just Davey’s. Apparently, he’d started a chain with the sympathy pukers. What I was seeing was about five people’s-worth of vomit all over poor Jane’s mother’s cream carpets.
I’ve never been so glad to have been able to detect when someone’s going to hurl.”
“I Was Beginning To Feel Uneasy”
“When I was fourteen, I was invited to go to Toronto with my best friend and her family for the weekend. Another family, friends of theirs, were coming along as well. Due to not having enough space in the vehicle, my best friend and I took the Greyhound Bus. It took us about two hours to arrive, but once we were there we still had to kill some time, as we were early and they were not. So we explored parts of Toronto.
Finally, around three in the afternoon (when they said they would be there), we started walking to the hotel and went to check in. Her family had not arrived. We figured they were stuck in traffic (considering Toronto traffic is the highway to Heck during those hours) so we hung around and just chilled. Around 4pm, there was still no sign of them. Coming on 5pm, we were getting antsy and wondering what the heck was going on.
We called a few of our friends who lived in Toronto to come and hang out and so they did. By the time we all met up, the other family joining us this weekend arrived. The father came along and he asked us where her mother was. In response, we said we didn’t know because she was coming with him. He said he had gone to the house, but no one was answering or even there, so he left and came here.
From this point on we were getting really confused and frustrated, but I noticed how he also kept closer to her than usual. He kept staring only at her, and was way too calm about the entire thing. I was beginning to feel really uneasy. Our Toronto friend also noticed, and he came close to me and said, ‘Don’t trust this guy.’
We went up to the level we were staying on, anyway, as the creepy father had said, ‘I’m sure they are coming. Let’s not have this ruined.’
Once we were up there, my best friend hurried to get to the phone and called her mother, to which she was almost shouting on the phone, ‘You need to come home now, he never came to pick us up.’
After the conversation, sure enough, the father of the other family came in and was acting weird as ever. He then said, ‘Well, if your mother isn’t making it, I’ll stay in this bedroom with you guys while my daughter and her friend can have the other one.’
As soon as that happened, I knew we were NOT staying there so I took her out of the hotel. Our friends took us to their house to hang out, before my best friend’s grandmother rented a car in order to come and get us. We were picked up later that evening.”
“This Really Disturbed Me”
“About eight years ago, I was living with a friend in a small trailer. There was a trailer a good way behind us that the landlord eventually rented out to some guys. I was playing with my PlayStation 2 in the living room one morning when one of the new neighbors knocked on the door. He introduced himself and we talked for a few minutes before he asked if I wanted to check out their place and smoke. I obliged.
During the walk to his trailer, he randomly asked me if I know anybody that wants to pay for a lady of the night. I told him no and asked why.
He said, ‘This girl just got out of jail and is staying with us. I just want to make her useful.’
This really disturbed me, but we were walking into his trailer by then.
Inside, there is no furniture or anything aside from one room with a small TV and a mattress. A guy and the girl in question were sitting on the bed watching something disturbing on the TV.
The guy that invited me over began searching all through his kitchen for what I assumed was the weed. Unable to find it, he proceeds to make a pipe out of an empty can and place a crack rock on it. He takes a hit and starts to pass it to me. I noped right the heck out and went home.
Next day, one of the guys stabbed the other guy and everybody went to jail so they were evicted.”