Improbable Doesn’t Mean Impossible: 30 Unlikely Events People Experienced Firsthand

My mom gave birth to me after sudden onset of labor at 37weeks and 6 days gestation, had a c-section because I was breech, born at 9:48 AM.

I gave birth to my child after sudden onset of labor at 37weeks and 6 days gestation, had a c-section because my daughter was breech, born at 9:48 AM.

Seems statistically improbable to me but maybe not super odd.

I have not had covid despite working in Healthcare the entire pandemic...

After losing an AirPod while skiing I was able to find it the next run

Took a summer time Organic Chemistry class, one month of classes 5 days a week then a three week break then another month for the second semester. After the break I reached into the box in my closet to grab the textbook where I had hidden it and felt a sharp stab in the corner of my little finger at the cuticle of the nail bed. I was running late to class so I thought nothing of it.

I became ill with profuse sweating and nausea during the day then violently ill into the night with vomiting and diarrhea and swollen adenoids. Went to the ER the next morning and they ran every test they could. Two days later I started having trouble breathing and went to the ER again. My heart was swollen up half again it normal size, my lungs were swollen, and my kidneys too. Doctors kept me for two days with batteries of tests and after two days let me go as everything was going back to normal. Then I began s******g what appeared to be a white paste and this went on for two days. At the end of which I noticed that my tongue and the lining of my mouth was almost purple in color and I had a red streak from the tip of my little finger that during the day extended up to my bicep by that evening. Went back to the ER and the doctor said he had no clue but maybe I had been bitten by something venomous.

I then thought about the day that the symptoms started and went to that box in my closet and sure enough there was a little black spider in the box. I asked one of my professors about it and he told me the county Health Department had a entomology office not far from campus so I captured the little spider and went on over.

The doctor there told me it was just a grass spider and there was absolutely no way it could have envenomated me for 3 reasons. He said they have curved mandibles so they cant hit the human skin, they have soft mandibles so even when they manage to strike the skin the mandible will turn and not break the surface but most importantly their venom which digests the proteins that stretch between the cell walls of animals gets bound to Platelets in the human bloodstream and is almost instantly neutralized.

I showed him where the bite was as evidenced by the red streak and sure enough it was in the corner of the nail bed in very soft tissue of the cuticle where the spider could actually get a strike. He asked if I had some kind of platelets disorder. I made a quick call to the Cancer Research hospital I worked at in the evenings at that time and sure enough I had donated platelets the evening before being bitten. A process where they put you on a platelet phoresies machine and extract almost all of your platelets for donation to kids who are in need of them due to having low counts from the chemotherapy.

It was at this point that the entomologist started hyperventilating and asking all kinds of questions. He was low key freaking out. He kept repeating that this was a billion to billion to one event and he'd never heard of it before. He ended up getting me to sign some papers so he could have my medical records and published a paper on it. Fun for him but not so much for me. The white paste that I pooped for 3 days was the epithelial lining of my entire digestive tract which came out as white pasty looking individual cells. By the end of the month everything was back to normal like none of it had ever happened. Interesting side note. When some spiders inject their victims and turn them into liquid that they can then drink this venom dissolves the proteins that hold cells together by running between the cell walls. These proteins re the only things binding the cells together. Without these proteins we would be reduced to a nasty white almost liquidy paste.

Edit: as it has been asked many time in the comments I do not possess a copy or link to the paper the entomolgist wrote. Nor do I remember which journal it was in. This happened in the early nineties and may have never even been out on the internet. Also I don't know if that journal even still exists. Can't be that many people reading journals on entomology. Also he was a PhD in Entomology and not a medical doctor so it wasn't in a medical journal.

Not me, but a friend. He was a merchant mariner. Lived here in Virginia Beach. He was alwaus calling and texting, posting pics from around the world.

One time he'd been out a while, we knew he was heading to Dubai, but didn't know where he'd be after that. 4 months go by, nobody's heard from him.

His neighbor, who I was friends with, gets married and goes to Thailand for his honeymoon. He texts me one day and said you aren't gonna believe this s**t.

He said he asked a local where a good local spot to eat was that tourists wouldn't be at. Guy takes him 30 minutes from the beach, to some dive bar/restaurant with no sign, no clearly marked entrance, he said it looked so shady he was afraid he was about to be robbed and killed. He goes in, and it's a legitimate restaurant. He eats, drinks some beers, goes to the bathroom. Out walks my friend, so he took a pic and sent it to me to confirm he's ok.

Imagine taking a flight several thousands of miles away, getting away from the tourist areas and going into a local dive bar, and running into your f*****g next door neighbor you haven't seen in months. S**t's wild.

My college advisor in hs did some b******t a*s calculations on his computer, flipped the screen around and it said I have a 1.34% chance of getting in to the school I wanted.

Guess who made it in that b***h. And I got the degree now too.

While attempting to get medical treatment, the dr.’s office ran a pharmacy report on my medical history and prescriptions. My terminally ill brother, whose full name was only 2 letters different from mine and we had the same address and phone number, was on a shitload of narcotics at the time and through their search they pulled up HIS report and thought it was mine. They yelled at me and kicked me out of the office saying I was just looking for drugs. I was mortified and very upset and they wouldn’t listen to me when I said it was my brother and not me. I ended up calling the pharmacy board and they called the doctor and explained that since we had the same address, phone number and an extremely similar name, they had to search by social security number. The doctor felt horrible and gave me free treatment and now he tells that story at conferences he goes to. It was crazy. So of course, I had something happen to me that the doctors or nurses had never come across before. The doctor shared with me the tales of the conferences he spoke at and said none of the doctors there knew it was possible for data from 2 people to be included in the same pharmacy report either. I guess they do now!

Dropped a glass while washing six - just six - wine glasses. It hit another glass, and shattered glass flew up out of the sink, hit me in the wrist, resulting in an arterial bleed. Home alone (house sitting). Cell service not available due to a big service fail in the area. Managed to stumble my way off the acreage to the nearest road and a driver was able to call for police and ambulance. Too close. Too damn close. I lost consciousness moments after hailing car for help. If she hadn’t stopped….

****EDIT*** FOR CLARIFICATION, TO ANSWER QUESTIONS AND TO DISPEL WACKY ASSUMPTIONS. You folks are kind. And some of you folks are wildly accusatory. Sigh. 1. Assuming I was drunk on wine, and drunk on the power of using a different wine glass for each drink I had. Lol. I don’t drink. The homeowners had had company the night before they left. Hence, the wineglasses. They wouldn’t put their “expensive, shipped home from Italy during last trip there” glasses in the dishwasher and asked me to wash them. This happened about four hours after they left to go to their summer house. 2. There was a massive cell service outage. No, it shouldn’t have happened. Read about the 2022 Rogers Communication Outage. Yeah, I should link it, but I don’t know how to do so properly. Apologies. 2(a) No, they don’t have a land line. 3. Yes, it was an arterial bleed. I knew it was bad, because I’ve watched ER (ha) and because the blood was spurting up and out all over the counter, the floor, me, the stove, the hanging pot rack, etc. 4. I’m a fainter. I quickly slumped down to the floor, having attempted a tourniquet while repeatedly calling 911. My dominant hand was injured. I’m a fainter. It was bad. I said to myself - out loud - YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE THAT DIES IN A STUPID F*****G HOUSEHOLD ACCIDENT. NOW GET UP AND WALK TO THE END OF THE PROPERTY AND HOPE A CAR GOES BY. 5. I did get up while putting pressure on my wrist and dropping saturated tea towels and adding new tea towels. The blood stain trail showed I was not steady on my feet and that I apparently tried to get in the car and drive. Blood trail continued down paved drive but also went in circles and onto the grass as I apparently fought against fainting/losing consciousness. 6. First car that drove by wouldn’t stop. I can’t say I blame them. Woman covered in blood stumbling, they may have been afraid. Car that stopped used in-car comms (OnStar? Apple? I dunno) to get help. But she wouldn’t get out of her car until I guess she was sure this wasn’t a domestic violence incident and she wasn’t putting herself in danger. She would not touch me or help to apply pressure. 7. Just as I was passing out - and if you’re a fainter, like I am, then you know when you’re going to faint and you know when you’ve reached the point where you can’t do anything to stop it - a woman from another car ran up to me and I asked her to keep pressure on - which she did. Using her bare hands and a small rag over my blood soaked tea towel. She saved my life. She didn’t have to do that, and I’m eternally grateful to her. No. I don’t know who she is. 8. Police entered the house and cleared it. Apparently believed that this was a possible domestic violence incident and thought the perp - or other victim - or that I was the perp and there was a victim of MY actions - might be in the house. They wrote that “the scene matched the story”, or something to that effect. The woman who stopped first must have told them I said I’d hurt myself washing dishes - which I’d told her in an effort to get her out of her car and applying pressure to the bleed. 9. Doctors in ER asked me what happened. Told them. I don’t know if they believed me or not, but as per normal protocol, they did ask me if I was safe at home. My license and health card showed I did not live in the area, so maybe then they believed I actually was just the house sitter. 10. I was in the hospital for about 6-8 hours. Went back to the acreage. Went to bed. Slept for about 12 hours. Cleaned the blood and glass up the next day. It was bad. Very bad. 11. I no longer use glass containers. I use only plastic cups. I’m still a non-drinker. I still house sit. I do not hand wash glasses. Ever. Under any circumstances. And when hearing a glass break I start to cry. Pathetic, but true. 12. I suggested to the homeowners that they get a landline. They did not. 13. From time to time, I still have some discomfort in my wrist. Also some numbness. I just rest it for a day or two and then it’s fine. Yes, I have a scar. Not very noticeable. 14. I had a second arterial bleed in the hospital when the resident stitching me up nicked my artery as they tried to do the repair. S**t happens. At least I was in the hospital. 15. The ER docs were absolutely amazed that I’d walked to the end of the property and gotten help all by myself. One doctor said, YOU saved yourself. Any lingering doubt was likely cleared up by police report of scene and blood trail. 16. Did this change my outlook on life? Yes and no. I’m less fearful in many ways, and more inclined to say yes to new experiences and adventures. I have developed a deep rooted fear of glassware. No joke. I won’t wash glassware. I was already aware of the random nature of life - and death - as my parents died when I was young , and I’ve had other random s**t happen to me. So. I get it. Life is random. Life is fragile. In the face of so much bad luck, I’ve been lucky. I’m still here. Still house sitting. Take care, friends. And be careful washing those damn glasses. (Edited for brevity and to satisfy someone’s unquenchable thirst for paragraphs.)

I underwent a surgical procedure called a stapectomy to improve the significant hearing loss in my GOOD ear. Instead, I ended up completely deaf. My surgical ENT said this has only happened to 5 patients IN THE US. (He was doing research to try to help me afterwards.) I don't know how true it is, but hey, lucky me.

Nearly getting killed by the same reckless/drunk driver twice in three years. The first time in 2001, I turned right. Before I completed the turn a Pontiac Sunfire zipped by going 100-110 mph.

The second near death was in the driveway in 2004. I was supposed to pick up my brother from work. This time I didn't. Instead, I hear a noise that could be heard a block away. The drunk driver smashed my car and turned it around 180 degrees. His BAC was 0.20. He tried running away and the neighbor tackled him. There happened to be a police officer nearby, too. Life comes at you fast.

I played softball with the kid when I was 11 years old. Drunk drivers don't want their license.