"Just To Be Safe": 30 Times People Had A Gut Feeling To Do Something And It Actually Saved Them

When I remodeled the second floor apartment I installed fire blocking to the balloon framed walls. My dips**t brother in law started a grease fire in the downstairs kitchen while I was on vacation and the fire was contained quickly. The fire inspector said that without the fire blocking the house would have been a smoldering hole in the ground.

I once was asked if I could give someone a ride home from a local convenience store. Normally I would say so, but I decided to be nice that day. They were a lady in their mid 30s or early 40s so I figured it wasn’t that big a deal. For whatever reason, I subconsciously mentioned that I wasn’t able to buy what I went in to the store for because I forgot my wallet at home. The person says “You don’t have your wallet on you?” 

I say “Nah.”

They look a little concerned, and a few moments later say they can walk to their destination just fine. Thought it was weird but didn’t think too hard about it.

Next day it’s on the news that a armed robbery took place in the exact location she asked me to take her to, and gave a description that 100% matched the person I was going to take home. 

Didn’t really save myself as I had nothing to steal, but an interesting story.

TLDR: My paranoia about a strange guy in a car kept my house from flooding.

We had a house fire Oct 2021 and we were bouncing back and forth between our house and a rental. Christmas Eve was extra cold and our pipes were frozen in our house (1894, no insulation yet). So we decided to go to the rental for Christmas Eve.

My wife and daughter were taking 1 car and I was taking the other. When I left the house I saw a man sitting in his car across the street messing on his phone. Given the cold weather it seemed odd. When my wife left, the man pulled his car across the street to the spot she just left (this is a one way street). Since I'm further back, I watch for a bit, but he doesn't do anything, just gets back on his phone.

Eventually my wife calls and asks where I am, because she didn't bring her keys for the rental. I drove over and let her in and tell her about the guy. She encourages me to go back and point one of our security cameras his direction just in case.

When I get back he's still there, so I go inside. Once I'm inside I hear water running. In the 30 minutes I was gone the water started running again.

In the back kitchen where the fire had been, the faucet was still on and was flooding the room. I shut that off and went downstairs to check the cellar under the kitchen for water leakage. In the cellar was a cracked copper pipe spraying water across the room. So I shut off the water and cleaned up the kitchen before the damage could cause permanent problems.

When I left, the guys car was still there, but he was gone. I think he was meeting a neighbor for Christmas Eve dinner. But, if he hadn't been there, the house would have been flooding for who knows how long.

My son had graduated college and then decided to follow his girlfriend to a small town where she got her dream job. It was a small town and good jobs were hard to come by so almost a year went by with him only working part time jobs. He had hit the age where we could not have him on our medical insurance anymore . I was concerned about this and started looing into options and told him to apply to our states low income medical. For once he listened and I thank God everyday because not a month after being approved he started to have leg pain. The first two trips to the Dr. they wrote it off as a pulled muscle but the third time they ordered test to find out he had a blood clot that stretched from his lower calf up into his abdomen. Placed him right into the hospital but remember small town, did not have the expertise to take care of this 50 mile ambulance ride to bigger hospital lots of tests to find out why and a total of over $120,000 of charges when all was said and done in which he had to pay less then $20. He is good now but it did damage the vein in his leg and he had pain from it and will have to be on blood thinners the rest of his life.

Closing the curtains.

I’m sitting in my living room watching Frasier, and I can’t explain it, but I get this overwhelming feeling to close the curtains. I’m thinking to myself I’ve lost it, and it’s probably nothing.

It nags me the rest of the episode, and so I close them.

Turns out, there was a guy who would look into people’s windows to see if they lived alone. He would then SA and rob them. He hit my next door neighbor at the time.

Get an old box or a backpack and fill it with an extra set of old clothes (including shoes/socks/tshirt/pants), a simple first aid kit, a flashlight, some water and a roll of toilet paper. Put it in the trunk of your car. I guarantee that you will use it one day.

If you want to be even smarter, add one of those shiny emergency blankets, a whistle, duct tape and multi tool. It doesn't take up much space.

I just recently used the pants, the socks, multi tool and water at a tailgate party. The toilet paper was used several times through the years (I'm a hero for that one)

You never know!

Edit: lots of great additions to this post in comments below. I keep both a waterproof backpack AND a small box of stuff- including many of the other things mentioned. It's not from paranoia, I'm just an old Boy Scout who hates getting caught with no clean pants to wear. Be Prepared...and at least have some basics! Safe travels everyone!

Threw a flashlight in my pocket when going for a day hike. We got lost in mountain lion territory and took over an hour in the dark to get out once we found the trail again. And we could hear some animal near us the whole time hiking out in the dark. Scared the bejeepers out of me, but the flashlight made it infinitely better than it could have been.

When I booked plane tickets for my honeymoon, I put my maiden last name rather than what I would be changing my last name to. Saved the day because my ex-fiance cheated and I called off the wedding. Had that plane ticket been with the last name I never took… I probably wouldn’t have been able to get the voucher from the airline. It was hard enough getting them to give me one with my real last name.

Was buying a cash bag to put in my backpack. One was water proof and the other one was not. I thought “I can’t imagine why I would need it to be water proof but better safe than sorry I guess.” Like 2 days later a Dr Pepper explodes in my backpack.

Bringing an umbrella. Both for rain and for too much sun on a hot day.