Note: This post contains mention of sexual assault and child abuse.
I regularly write about people’s intuition unexpectedly kicking in and how they’re able to escape dangerous situations, even death, by listening to that gut feeling. Here are even more of your stories that are a testament to the power of our intuition:
1.
“My former teacher was in Japan on vacation and about to go home. He got to the airport and just felt that he shouldn’t get on his flight — something told him to push it back to a later time, so he rescheduled for a later flight. He had a bit of a stomach ache and nausea, but just figured it was from something he had eaten. Nothing to be concerned about. Two hours later, his appendix burst. He was rushed via ambulance to the hospital for emergency surgery. If he was on that flight it would have burst while they were in the air over the ocean.”
2.
“A few years back, my colleague was running late to work and she came in a little short of breath. I asked if she was okay, and she said she was just winded from rushing. 10 minutes later, her face looked puffy to me, and I told her I thought she needed to leave work and go to the hospital, even though everyone else thought she looked normal. I just had a feeling. I convinced her to go get checked out and she left. An hour later, she called me. Just after she arrived at the hospital, she went into full anaphylactic shock and had to be shot up with epinephrine and prednisone. She could have died if I hadn’t convinced her to leave work.”
3.
“We had a pre-construction work meeting planned at 9 a.m. My work partner and I decided to change the meeting, for no reason, to 9:30 a.m. because we suddenly felt like it. 11 of us were already there, so we were standing around and chatting elsewhere since we were early. At 9:11, a car going 50 mph went through the room we were going to have our meeting in. The impact was so hard the car was almost in the next room. It would have more than likely killed, or at least seriously hurt, everyone sitting in that room.”
4.
“One summer, my son was set to attend a week-long student training five hours away from home. A friend offered to take him along with their son who was attending a sports camp there at the same time. My son planned to get a ride back with four other friends who lived another 40 minutes west of us. The night before he left, I had a dream that he was killed in an accident coming home. I told him in the morning that I would be picking him up from camp, despite his protests. On our way home, we came upon an accident near the county line that happened moments before we got there. Before I could pull over the car, another son with us got a terrible nosebleed, so I had to continue home. The next day, we learned that the van involved in the single-vehicle accident was the car my son would have been riding in.”
“There was only one survivor.”
5.
“My husband and I had been living together for a short time. I am a fully and permanently disabled veteran, so I can’t work. My husband was working for correction services at the time, and didn’t usually come from work for lunch. But he kept getting the feeling he needed to. He came home and found me on the floor. I was blue from lack of oxygen and had passed out. I had severe pneumonia and didn’t even know it. I had gotten up to make lunch and must have overburdened my system to pass out. He rushed me into the car and took me to the hospital around the corner. He saved my life.”
6.
“A neighbor of mine always creeped me out. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but something was just off. He was only like four years older than me, though I made it a point to never be alone with him. He lived with his uncle, and my dad was friends with the uncle. I told my dad I didn’t want to spend time around the kid at all, but since they were friends, that wasn’t going to happen. His family ended up moving out of the neighborhood and we lost touch. One evening we turned on the news and saw the nephew’s face on the screen. He’d kidnapped his younger sister and fled the state. There was a manhunt for him. They ended up finding him and his sister a few states away like a week or two later.”
7.
“Last year, late at night as I was trying to get to sleep, I kept hearing what sounded like my two nephews crying when they were babies, even though they were almost 10 years old at the time. I got up thinking maybe they left the TV on or if my brother was watching old videos of them as babies. But they were sound asleep. I got up a total of three times because each time I laid down, I’d hear the familiar baby cries. Eventually, I figured I should check my glucose even though I felt fine. It turns out it was very low and dropping. Had I fallen asleep, I could’ve easily fainted and slipped into a coma. No one would think to check on me until the afternoon. I think my body was warning me.”
8.
“My cousin hadn’t gotten a call, text, email, or any form of contact from my uncle in a week. When I don’t hear from my own dad in a week, I assume he’s busy and don’t bother him. But she, on the final day of the week, followed her gut instinct and drove straight to his house to check on him. I drove them both to the hospital. He had collapsed and couldn’t get up for the whole week. When she found him, he was panting and looked really sweaty. She might have saved his life.”
9.
“My buddy picked me up in his uncle’s fiery red MG, which he’d borrowed without permission. The way this car drove, I told him I’d love to own one someday. He pulled over, jumped out of the driver’s seat, and exclaimed, ‘Bro, then you gotta drive this!’ I climbed out, ran around to the driver’s side, and jumped in. We were coming to an on-ramp of the elevated Brooklyn-Queens Expressway as he yelled, ‘Go ahead, man, slam that pedal to the floor.’ I knew the ramp had its own lengthy entrance lane that was off a curve, so I revved it into third gear as we came up to the highway level. I was just about to zoom out into the flow of traffic when something made me hesitate. I slammed on the brakes. ‘Why are–’ my friend started to say. Just then, a speeding car that cut across three lanes smashed into our lane’s outer guard rail, exactly where we’d have been if I followed through with shifting into fourth gear.”
10.
“I had a double-shift work day, and around 7 p.m. I realized I hadn’t heard from my boyfriend all day. That wasn’t like him at all. I called, but there was no answer. When I got home late that night, he wasn’t there. I figured he went to his place, and I called again. Still no answer. I thought it was strange, but figured he was sleeping or left his phone somewhere. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. abruptly, and my gut told me something wasn’t right. I convinced myself I was being ridiculous and went back to sleep. When I woke up later, I still had no messages from him. I texted his family — no one heard from him. I drove to his work, and while I was driving I got a text that he was at his dad’s. I replied that he was needed at work. So, his dad went upstairs and found him unconscious. He was barely breathing. He was unresponsive in the ICU for four days. If I hadn’t said something, his dad would have left for his hike and my boyfriend would be dead right now.”
“He has severe brain damage due to the lack of oxygen, but he’s alive and on the road to some form of recovery.”
11.
“I was 35 weeks pregnant with my third child and I had this overwhelming feeling of needing to be done with the pregnancy, like the baby needed to be born soon. She had been moving around and kicking a lot that day, and then I had a big contraction and she stopped moving. I waited to see if she would move again and tried all the tricks they give you to ‘count kicks.’ By the next morning, she still hadn’t moved, and I knew I needed to go to the hospital to get her checked. She ended up being born at 35 weeks and 2 days via emergency c-section — her cord had wrapped around her neck with two true knots in the cord. Mother’s intuition is real.”
12.
“In high school I worked at a lawyer’s office, mostly making copies and running documents across the street to the clerk’s office. I worked there for three summers, and at the end of the third summer, I went to the outbox to grab the papers and noticed a check on the front. I’d never brought a check over before, but I figured the clerk would know what to do with it. I walked out onto the porch of the office and the paralegal ran out after me and said, ‘Hold up, uh, let me put that check in an envelope. I just feel odd about you having to walk around with a big ol’ check hanging out.’ I waited on the steps while she went in. Immediately after she walked back into the building, a truck was rear-ended and rocketed right across the sidewalk I would have been on had I not been stopped by the paralegal. Every time I see her, I thank her for saving my life.”
13.
“I was extremely dizzy, sleeping all the time, and generally having lots of difficulties concentrating. This was extremely abnormal for me, but I was told that I was ‘just anxious.’ A week later, I went to an urgent care clinic where my vitals were so unstable that they sent me to the hospital. The ER doctor saw me and assumed I was mentally incompetent because I’m physically disabled. He didn’t even run any tests. He wrote it off as anxiety and sent me home. A week later, I passed out at work, and my boss called 911. The EMTs wrote it off as anxiety. I begged my mom to take me to the hospital, and she listened. My dad called and threatened to sue the hospital if they didn’t at least run tests this time. They did, and I had a pulmonary embolism. I could have died if I waited any longer.”
14.
“Years ago, I worked for a small manufacturing company, and we had machines in the back that were run by this older guy who creeped me out. He was kind of quiet and standoffish, and all of the other women in the office with me avoided him, so I did as well. We all just had a feeling about him. One day, I went out for lunch and when I came back, there were multiple squad cars in the parking lot. Turns out, the creepy guy had made threats against two of the packaging line supervisors and made comments about how easy it would be to blow up the building. He was arrested, fired, and banned from the property.”
15.
“I had a guy friend that I got along well with. He was interested in dating me, but I had no romantic interest in him. My family and friends pressure me to date him. One time my dad even asked, ‘Are you SURE you’re not interested in dating him?’ I yelled at my dad that I was never going to be interested in this guy and we were never bringing up the subject again. The guy and I had a falling out and lost contact. A year or so later, I found out the guy spent time in jail for sexual assault of a minor years ago! It really rattled me. I knew he’d spent time in prison, but he never elaborated. It was so frustrating that all these people tried to convince me to date him when I could just feel there was something off.”
16.
“My little sister had a gut feeling that one of her high school teachers was a pedophile. He didn’t do anything to her, though none of her friends shot her down when she told them to stay away from him. Like most of these cases, she didn’t say anything because she knew no one would believe her. He did things like favoring girls over boys. He’d talk about how the girls in his class were different, and he made sure he had their favorite snacks and other things. A lot of times, he and another student would be alone in his room. He was later caught having an absolutely inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old.”
“He had taught at the school a long time, and even my older sisters had him for class.”
17.
“In my early 20s, I went drinking one night with a group of friends. I unintentionally got very drunk to the point where I had to vomit and was just out of it. One of the guys in that group insisted that he take me home, but my female friend insisted she took me instead. I was staying in a little guest house with friends at the time because I was visiting. She walked me in and explicitly told me to lock the door behind me and she wouldn’t leave until I did. 10 minutes later, that guy showed up and banged on the door. I was too out of it to get up. I didn’t realize that I was in a potentially dangerous situation until later. Years later, several female friends came forward and accused this guy of sexually assaulting them when they were either asleep or passed out. I’m forever grateful to my friend for listening to her gut and watching out for me.”
What’s a moment in your own life where your intuition kicked in and your gut feeling rescued you from a harmful situation? Share your story in the comments.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
