"I'm Glad I Left When I Did”: 44 Heart-Pounding Moments Where Instinct Or Luck Saved These People

When I worked in Manhattan, I'd walk the same way to the train every night. I crossed 41st street between Lexington and 3rd at the same spot on the street. I always crossed about 3/4 of the block ( not on the corner) because cars turning right towards 3rd were unlikely to see or stop for pedestrians crossing the street.

When I arrived home from work, I saw that there was a huge gas explosion by my work. It was so big that it created a sinkhole that swallowed up a truck. That sink hole was the exact path I crossed every night and the explosion happened about 15 minutes after I crossed. In addition, people in the area were hit with shrapnel. Phew! that was a close one.

I was in my apartment. It was 10PM. For some reason, I was tired and went to bed. Twenty minutes later, a huge BOOM! woke me up. I turned on the light and saw the air was full of something like smoke, but it wasn't smoke. It was drywall dust. A drunk driver had driven straight into my kitchen. Normally, I would have been raiding the fridge.

In October 2016, an excavator in Portland, Oregon, dug on the wrong side of the street, causing a natural gas explosion. Several people were injured, including three firefighters.

There was a cafe/bagel shop in the building, and often I’d go in there and grab something before work. Even if I didn’t, I would walk right by there to get to my bus. I lived a block away from the explosion.

That day, I was in a training at work and got there not long before the explosion. Shortly after I arrived, my coworker who was also in the training had to take an emergency phone call. It was his wife; she worked in the building and, thankfully, they’d been evacuated due to a suspected gas leak. Moments later, the building exploded, causing the destruction you see above.

Apparently the blast shook my apartment building and shattered windows in the building and others nearby. I’m glad I left for work earlier than usual that morning. I’m glad everyone left the building when they did.

My husband and I separated one week before I found out that his brother was arrested for m**der but first the police picked up and arrested my husband because his brother was using his ID. Glad I had nothing to do with them.

I once left a party early because I wasn’t feeling it, just tired and off. Found out the next day that cops showed up an hour later, someone got arrested, and a bunch of people got citations. Total chaos. I was home in pajamas eating chips. No regrets.

Not me, but a friend was at a paint store. The checkout was up front by the entrance and parking lot. About 30 seconds after he left, a car plowed through the main foyer and traveled through where he was standing. Crazy to think how a few moments different could have changed everything for him and his family.

Ooh, I got a good one.

I was born in 2004, and in that exact year, you guys know about the destruction of the 2004 Tsunami?

Yeah, so I was there, that same day the tsunami hit.

I was only like a year old, since it was near the end of the year. So the story goes, as my parents tell me, that we were at the airport, an hour before it started.

I very vaguely remember the airport being crowded, and one thing that had stuck in my mind: just as before we got on the plane, the big clock on the walls of airports began to tremble.

Of course, we didn't think much of it. Then the floor tremored slightly, and I remember people began to worry.

A few minutes later I was in the plane with my parents, and when we touched down back in Singapore, my parents were horrified by the news.

Yeah, we were very lucky that day.

That's my most insane moment of being glad we left when we did, cause if not, well… I'm sure you can imagine.

My wife and I went to a wedding in the Adirondacks one weekend years ago. We used to live in NYC but we had moved to California, so we were flying in and out of Albany, arriving Saturday and taking the Monday off work to make it a long weekend. On the way to the airport to go home, we decided to see if we could stay the night, go to our favourite restaurant, and fly out of NY in the morning. We tried to book by calling United, but they wanted to charge us a change fee, so we gave up and flew home out of Albany. The flight we would have got was United 93, that crashed on 9/11, the next morning.

On my 21st birthday. Was at a club with a group of friends. Bumped into an old friend. Went outside to smoke a cig with him. Had a weird urge that it’s time to leave and ordered an Uber. Within 1 or 2 minutes of our friend group hopping into the uber & leaving. My old friend got swung at with a knife across the chest & stabbed in the neck, he fought back aggressively and eventually stabbed the attacker to death. Turns out my old friend got into some shady business surrounding illegal grows/d**g trading in the mountains. He survived, attacker did not.

And I miraculously got away without witnessing that horror. Saw it all over the news the next day. Spoke with my old friend’s family & best friend later on.

On October 17, 1989, I left work early about 4:45 to go from Alameda to San Francisco to get home for the World Series game of the A’s at Giants.

After going under the estuary in the tunnel and looping onto the Freeway, I drove on the bottom deck of an unusually uncrowded Cypress structure, through the equally uncrowded Bay Bridge toll plaza, and up the cantilever section. While on the trestle section, the announcer on the radio said, “We’re having a really big earthquake”.

It was 5:04 pm.

I was about 30 seconds past the section of the bridge that collapsed into the Bay

[Edit: I am corrected — it didn’t collapse into the Bay, if fell on the lower deck. What can I say, it was behind me! One car went down with one k**led, but nobody got wet. ]

And if I had left at the usual time, or there had been traffic, there was a good chance I’d have been on the lower deck of the Cypress structure when it pancaked

So, yeah, I’m glad I left when I did.

I can also say authoritatively that after an earthquake, the vertical cables on a suspension bridge vibrate like those on a very large stringed instrument — with visible 5–6 foot waves.

My marriage.

Less than two months after my divorce was finalized, the ex-husband was arrested for s*x crimes (two counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and two counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile).

He knowingly committed s*x acts with a 15-year-old. He was 36.

For the last year of the marriage I was miserable but stayed because I thought it was better for my children (they were 2 and 4 at the time). I shudder when I imagine some of the potential scenarios that my kids could have endured had I stayed. Sometimes a “broken home” is the healthier option.

When his photo was being splashed across the news I was sooooo glad I had already switched back to my maiden name!!

We finished up at a restaurant and left just 4 minutes before a tornado came through without warning. We got lucky that day!

I was at this bar, left 10 minutes before a guy decided to stab three people on the balcony. My buddy told me about it the next day.

I used to sell garlic themed specialty food items before Covid. I skipped the Gilroy Garlic Festival the year of the shooting that ki**ed several people. My booth would have been right there where it happened.

I was at a party at a frat house. Large 3 floor house that had an oversized fire escape/porch on the back.
My friend stepped out onto the second floor porch to get some air. We were just shooting the breeze when the third floor door open and about 40 people spilled out above us.
Suddenly a board or strut c*****d behind us.
We just got up and kinda let gravity do the work as we went down the stairs as fast as we could.
We went around the side and found my friend Tony and told him that the back porch was overloaded.
We grabbed our beers and started walking home.
Found out the next day that the porch had collapsed after detaching from the side of the house.
Nobody died (Thank God!) but a lot of people got injured.

After high school started running the wrong crowd, doing stupid things, smoking pot (a felony at the time), getting chased by police, etc. Working but was sort of aimless, that's when a new guy sort of entered our group of around 8 friends, he was older with long hair sort looked like a biker type. He had befriended one of the guys and before you know it, he was always hanging out with us, didn't really have a job but was fun, nonetheless. We're all hanging out doing delinquent things for about 6 months when my uncle called my folks and asked if I would help him do construction during the summer. I said sure, why not and literally within 4 days he drove up to my parents' house and said he was driving through to his home 3 states away and I could join him. Packed a small duffle bag and rode with him up to Seattle where I ended up staying for 10 years and earning my engineering degree. Forward 10 years later, I'm sitting at a housewarming party back in my hometown while I was visiting the folks over the holidays and the husband came up to me and said that he was a sheriff and let me know that the biker dude was an undercover cop and they were going to arrest me within the week. Pretty much the whole group of friends had either went to jail or prison, and it was just dumb luck that my life wasn't ruined. Not a day goes by that I'm so thankful how my life has turned out compared to what could have happened.

Mine is way less dramatic than a lot of things here, but I was in an emotionally a*****e relationship for a lot of my teen years. After he pushed me too far sexually and then used my reluctance as justification for cheating, I finally got the good sense to call it.

A few months later, I was working for a local family doctor. My ex's new girlfriend came in (I knew this thanks to small town social media), s******l because he had gotten her pregnant and then manipulated her into an abortion she didn't actually want. I obviously couldn't say anything to her, but I have never wanted to reach out and try to comfort someone I didn't know so badly.

It could have so easily been me in her situation, and knowing myself I think it would have k**led or at least permanently traumatized me.

It’s not my “I’m glad I left when I did moment.” It’s my friend, Stan’s.

Stan lives in Florida. He and his girlfriend had just made camp on the bank of a river in Florida. But Stan said that there was something—something—about that spot that did not feel right to him. So they picked up camp and made a new camp a couple of hundred yards down the bank.

A little later, Stan’s hunch was proven right.

A cattle stampede went right through the spot that they vacated.

(For those who don’t know, Florida is a major cattle-producing state.)

Back in the mid-90's in Tampa there were a few women k**led (I don't remember all of the details) while out late and the only description was a dark-haired man in a red jeep. I worked 3rd shift and enjoyed (I had 3 young children at home) going shopping in the middle of the night. It was very peaceful and this was before cell phones but I would always call my husband from the payphone outside the front of the store to let him know I would be an hour late.

While making the phone call, you guessed it, a dark-haired man in a red jeep pulled up next to me and asked if I could help him. I replied, "hold on" while I continued speaking to my husband who, of course, asked, "who is that?" I told him what was going on (the interruption) and he said, "oh my god, Lisa. Get out of there right now!"

He said he was watching the news and that is exactly what was described by witnesses...a man approached lone women and asked for help. I immediately left and have no idea if that was the "k**ler" or not. I tried looking for information by Googling but was unsuccessful. I would really like to know what happened afterwards.

I was heading to Tijuana for a pleasure trip back in 1984. I stopped into a McDonalds to grab a bite to eat and a couple bottles of water. The place seemed creepy to me, a rather run-down McDonalds; I didn’t think much of it, I took my purchase with me, having no interest in staying any longer than necessary then heading for the border.

Upon my return home, I found out that shortly after, there was a terrible massacre there, 21 people were k**led and another 19 injured. Had I stayed to eat or arrived a little later, I might have been among the dead and injured. I’m glad I left when I did.