Enjoy every moment in your life, smell the flowers, don’t sweat the small stuff, appreciate your friends and family, be grateful, and stay blessed.
Just ask some of these AskReddit users who dodged a bullet (some figuratively, others literally) and are here to share their tales.
I was living in London dating this hot Russian woman. She was on the pill, thankfully, or so I thought. A week after dating, she came to me saying she was pregnant. I thought it was really suspicious, so I lied and said, “THAT’S AMAZING! A friend of my family is the best obstetrician in the city. Let’s go!”
She said, “No, I already have my family doctor who has verified I’m pregnant.”
I insisted [by] saying,”Don’t you want the best for our child? The best doctor? We can make sure you and the baby are healthy, how far along you are, etc”.
She responded with, “You’re clearly not the right man for this.” And, I never heard from her again.
I avoided that trap, thank God.
WaywardWords
Under bombardment in Baghdad in 2004, a Chinese-made Katyusha Rocket landed 30ft away and blew me up. I stood up, dusted myself off, and discovered I was completely unhurt.
As I was marveling at this, I watched another rocket come in. I knew from its parabola that my luck was up and stood rooted to the spot, horrified, as it came down nose first about 5 ft away from me. I’ve never been so certain that my life was over.
It failed to explode.
AntonyLoveless
A girl I went on two dates with ended up stabbing her next boyfriend two months later. I didn’t follow up after two dates cause I got a weird vibe. Never been happier about that gut instinct.
Kilen13
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Almost got kidnapped in a mall when I was 5 and separated from my mom. A guy just grabbed my hand and led me to the exit. I was stunned, initially, but started screaming when we neared the exit, and he panicked and let go. Still, freaks me out to think what would’ve happened if that hadn’t deterred him.
clynnec01
I didn’t actually dodge a bullet. The bullet dodged all of my internal organs. Doctors told me [that] if it [had] hit me anywhere else in [my] chest I would have died.
PhaetonSiX
When I was a kid I was hit by a van while riding my bike. It just so happened that I couldn’t find my bike helmet, so I put on my mom’s motorcycle helmet. It is the only reason I survived the accident. Bike helmets are designed for falls, not accidents. Even with the motorcycle helmet, I was knocked out so hard [and later] woke up in the hospital.
polio23
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A girl I dated my senior year in college (and was absolutely smitten with) didn’t treat me well and did a really good job of stringing me along while still hooking up with her ex-boyfriend. She’s now a three-time divorced single mom who posts a lot of minion memes on Facebook.
dropEleven
I used to be engaged and made a lot more money than my (then) fiancee. She had a son and we planned on having children together, so I was supportive when she talked to me about quitting her job (NYC teacher) to be a stay-at-home mom. It made a lot of sense.
She ended up quitting her job at the end of the year, but a couple of weeks into summer she offhandedly mentions how she wanted to look into hiring a full-time babysitter for her son. I asked if she was going back to work in the fall, but she said no. She just wanted someone to watch her son from roughly when I left for work until I came home. I pointed out the whole point of leaving her job to be a stay-at-home-mom was to do that very thing. I already paid people to clean the home, do the landscaping, and vacuum the pool, while, I did most of the cooking. It’s not like I expected a whole lot.
We ended up fighting a lot about this over the next couple of weeks until we broke off the engagement and broke up altogether. She’s still friendly with my friend’s wives/girlfriends, and I’ve since learned she married a guy who basically works 24/7 to keep her in a life of luxury.
anonymous
I was searching my pockets for the keys to the front door of the building I was living in at the time and a friend, who had given me a ride home, shouted at me from the car because I had forgotten something inside. The moment I got to the car part of the stone facade of the building fell exactly where I had been a few seconds prior.
Tentapenta
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When I was in Guyana visiting family, we were supposed to go to Kaieteur Falls and the only way to get there was by a small plane. Two days before we were supposed to go, a distant aunt of mine died and the funeral was the day we were supposed to go. So, we went to the funeral and turns out the plane we were supposed to be on crashed killing four people.
poweroftheorthanc
My family was looking for houses for us to move into. We had two in mind and almost picked one, but, in the end, decided that we would [go with] the one we currently live in.
Three years ago, a large tree fell into what would’ve been my room on the house we decided against. My mom still gets out the photo of the partially destroyed house on special anecdotal occasions.
moaningpilot
I made my dad miss his usual train into London on the day of the 7/7 bombings. If he was on time, he would have been killed or injured in the blast at Russell Square Station.
The reason I saved him was because I refused to put my underwear on and my mom had already headed off to work, leaving him to drop me off late at school.
Tomdeaser
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I got really lucky. It was not too serious though
When I was in college and under 21, I was going to go out with some friends to a house party. Well, I was busy playing World of Warcraft and decided I would meet them later on where the party would be and skip pre-gaming. Well, when they walked from my friend’s house to the party they carried the beer with them. An undercover cop stopped them and cited them all. I ended up walking past all of them, sitting on the curb, while the cop was taking their info.
I can say World of Warcraft did one productive [thing] in my life.
Feelsgood767
I had a girlfriend who said, “I love you” within the first week of dating. She kept saying how she felt like she knew me forever and want to spend eternity with me.
I proceeded to break things off with her a week later.
A month or two after, she started dating [another] guy [and] announced she was pregnant on Facebook. I enjoyed looking at the shotgun wedding photos.
JackusABackus
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I volunteered for Airborne School when I was in the Army years ago. On my first official jump in school, I somehow managed to flip forwards in my parachute harness and my chute deployed completely [wrong], what we call a cigar roll. This caused the chute to deploy all rolled up and it got no air. I free-fell for a second before coming to my senses and pulling my reserve. Most terrifying day of my life, and I still had four more jumps to get through that week to graduate.
-killjey
Once I was at a firing range, and I noticed a woman and a small girl trying to load a firearm. I thought she was way too young to be allowed to do this and went over to confront them when the woman started mouthing off at me and waving the gun around. I told her to stop, but she said it wasn’t loaded because she took the magazine out, but I told her that there could easily be one in the chamber. She said not to be stupid and pulled the trigger like an idiot, and I barely ducked in time.
nXcalibur
Recently, I noticed my job was acting kinda weird. I tried to warn people, but they called me paranoid. I got another job that wanted me to start right away so I quit my current job after the job offer. The day after I quit, job fired 75% of staff. I don’t know if I would have stayed or not, but I think I dodged a huge bullet, financially.
flippermode
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When I got arrested for stealing alcohol I [also] had weed in my backpack. Luckily, it had fallen through a tear in the pocket and ended up in the lining of my backpack so when the cop searched it, while booking me, he didn’t find it, and I didn’t end up with a possession charge.
-eDgAR-
When I was fifteen years old, I was suffering from dizzy spells and constant tiredness. They figured I had some kind of Anemia. I had a blood test done on me, and they found an abnormally highly white blood cell count. This usually meant one of two death sentences. Leukemia or Sickle Cell Anemia. Turns out, I had a one in a million third option. Genetically, I have much denser bones than a normal person. The doctor was suspicious of this when it took such an abnormally long time to get a bone marrow sample. Usually, it’s done in five minutes. It took him nearly twenty to jam the needle into my sternum. Denser bones accounted for higher white blood cell count. I was, and remain to date, over thirty years later, perfectly healthy.
Patches67
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Throat started hurting when drinking lemonade. Went to the doctor; found tonsil cancer. While being treated for that, the docs found a spot on my lung that turned out to be cancer too. If I hadn’t gotten tonsil cancer, [they] probably wouldn’t have found [the] lung cancer until it had gotten really bad.
Gmajj
Almost got a girl pregnant at 14…
RsRose
Not me, but my sister. My parents found a nice housing development in 1996 where they wanted to move to. However, at the last minute a new development was being built at a better location for commuting purposes, so we moved there. The first development would’ve [placed] my sister to [attend] Columbine High School where she would’ve been a freshman in 1998-1999.
Coffeesq
Two years ago during New Year’s Eve, [I] lit a firework with a lighter too close to the base of the rocket instead of the fuse itself. Exploded half a second as I yanked my hand because I knew I was in deep s***. Almost blasted my hand and face.
heartc0re
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Just a couple days ago, I almost hit a deer and went off the road. All things considered, it went pretty well. The car is fine, I’m fine, deer’s fine.
anonymous
I was supposed to get married today. Very glad I dodged that one.
DishonorStudent
Boss asked me to cover a shift that night, but, the day before, I had decided to go back to my hometown for a few days so I told him I couldn’t. If I had been around I absolutely would have said, “Yes.” That night while the boss and the girl who should have been me were working late, two guys entered the store and held them at gunpoint while they took all the money from the till. I only went home because I had been dumped and just wanted comfort for a few nights. So, thank you to my ex for the great timing.
EvilNeverSleeps
Flaked on going to a dinner with a bro. He ended up hitting a ladder in the road (I-95), rolled the SUV. He walked away from the accident with A SCRATCH. Had I been in the passenger seat, though, it would not have ended well for me.
Joat35
Somebody was trying to rob me for my phone when I was a freshman in high school so I took off running and he shot at me. When I [got] home, I noticed there was a bullet hole in my book bag. Thank goodness I was a great student because those books saved my life.
HatatachiN1nj4
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Back in grade 5, I made a simple slingshot with a thick elastic band that was wrapped around my index and middle finger. I was bored in class so I decided to fire a pencil. I fired my pencil [in] a random direction and it launched at a surprisingly fast speed that sped past a girl’s face that was 3 inches away. The pencil hit the wall with a loud cracking sound. I was pretty sure [that] nobody saw what [had] happened except [for] me and that girl. She gave [me] a horrified look and that’s all I remembered. So, basically, I dodged a bullet from another person dodging MY bullet.
kuroturtlez
The kid isn’t mine.
Addrian