12 Real Stories of People Who Acted on Pure Instinct and Ended Up Saving a Life

Being able to make a quick decision might prevent a tragedy. However, some people do so even they’re not sure what’s going on. They simply feel a sense of unease that puts them on high alert or prompts them to making a move in the blink of an eye. There are stories online that show how just important it is to trust your instincts and how powerful it can be in emergencies.

• My now wife and I did the long distance thing in college, and I planned on doing my normal routine to visit her, leave Chicago in the morning, get to her early afternoon on Friday. Well, I’m closing my store on Thursday night, and get a feeling I should leave that night. So I thought whatever and left that night.
  A little after lunch on Friday, tornado sirens go off. I don’t think anything of it until I head back home Sunday, and drive through a town about half hour north of her. It got lit up by the tornado. I quickly realize that if I had left at my normal time, I would’ve been smack-dab in the middle of a tornado. © jvac23 / Reddit

• A few years ago, I was stopped at a red light around 3am. I had just picked up my boyfriend from downtown. I had a sudden urge to look in my rearview mirror.
  And thankfully I did because in it, I saw a SUV that was speeding and wasn’t slowing down. I ended up halfway in the intersection to get out of their way. We both would’ve died from rear impact. © Unknown user / Reddit

• It was about 2 years ago. I was walking down a main road. I don’t know why, but something told me I needed to cross. I wasn’t even going that way, but I just felt like I had to cross.
  It was quiet, so I quickly ran across the road. Just as I got to the other side, a driver came down the road, and hit a light pole where I had just been. © bluejay_evers / Reddit

• It didn’t happen to me but was told by my mom when she was pregnant with my older sister. She and her family decided to go hiking in the mountains.
  On the day of the hike, she suddenly felt discomfort and unconformable, so she stayed behind while the rest of her family went for the hike. Her family got lost and if it wasn’t for my mom staying behind, they wouldn’t have gotten help. Keep in mind that there were no cellphones back then, so if you got lost, it was a lot harder to contact rescue to come find you. © ToldNoOne / Reddit

• I was around 8 or 10 years old and my 2-3-year-old sister jumped in the deep end of the pool. I jumped in less than a second after because I had a feeling she would. I jumped into action before the lifeguard even noticed and before my mom could do anything, and when I got her up my mom pulled her out and that’s when the lifeguard saw (if he even did). © ImTheG**OfAdvice / Reddit

• My mother saved my grandfather’s life when he had a stroke in his chair in their living room.
  We had all started to walk around the development when my mother, after about 50–75 meters from the house said, “I am going to go back and check on dad.” I went with her, and I nearly witnessed my grandfather die.
  He was on the chair, conscious, but unable to move or talk, just looking at my mother with bulging eyes. She called 911 once, then twice when she felt that they were running late. Because he was conscious, he actually remembers the ride to the hospital. He told us later that he heard the driver or someone say, “There is not a chance that this guy lives”. That was when I was around 5 or 6 years old. He is still alive to this day, more than a decade later.
  At my mother’s funeral, part of his speech was about how, without my mother’s actions, he would not have been able to spend time with her during her final years of life. And for that, he is eternally grateful. © blidd***22 / Reddit

• When I was 6, my brother and I would go to my grandma’s house while our mom worked late some nights. One day I was just randomly thinking about fire alarms. I don’t know what caused me to think about it, but after I started I couldn’t stop. I asked my grandma, and she said she hadn’t tested hers in a while.
  Just for kicks she did and sure enough the batteries were dead. She replaced the batteries and made sure they worked. The very next morning, her house caught on fire while she was asleep. If she didn’t hear the fire alarms, she would’ve been trapped in her room on the second story without a phone or any way to contact help. She most likely would’ve died.
  I always make sure fire detectors/alarms work in my house now. © bread-and-soup / Reddit

• I woke up from a deep sleep at like 2AM during a winter storm feeling like something wasn’t right. I immediately went looking for my senior dog and couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. My roommates had a tendency to let her out for a walk and forget about her, closing the door.
  I ran to the front of the house and found her laying on the welcome mat, she was hardly breathing and covered in snow. She had been outside alone for at the very least 5 hours.
  She was better after an hour or two, I forfeit my sleep and warmed her up slowly and gave her plenty of munchy food when she was back up to snuff. She and I were very lucky she wasn’t out there much longer.
  I moved out shortly after. © Cafilkafish / Reddit

• I was maybe 12 or 13 at the time. A childhood friend of mine came to the house to ask if I could play. My mom said she had a bad feeling and told me not to go.
  My friend leaves the house, doesn’t stop at the stop sign and gets hit by a car.
  He’s alive and healthy. I think he had some stitches but nothing life-threatening. But if momma bear didn’t have her instinct, I’d have probably been hit or been in a bad spot. © TsuDoughNym / Reddit

• I had a cat who loved getting into things and hiding. Drawers, cupboards, the fridge, anything that was small and dark, she loved it. One day I was doing laundry and I tossed everything in the dryer. Shut the dryer door and pressed the button (it was one of those that takes a minute to start). Something didn’t feel right, I thought maybe I forgot to add dryer sheets or something. I turn off the dryer, open the door, and out pops my cat like, “Haha, you found me!” Totally oblivious to what was about to happen.
  Ever since then, I always double-check before turning on an appliance. © fairyboi_ / Reddit

• At work we had to separate two piling augers (like giant corkscrews), used for drilling large holes in the ground. One of the augers was chained to a heavy beam which was sunk into the ground and the other auger was chained to a large 10-ton forklift in order to pull them apart.
  One day the forklift driver was in a bad mood, he was lazy, so instead of pulling the augers slowly apart he decided to reverse back and forward as fast as he could which put a huge amount of sudden shock on the 2-inch chains.
  After a couple attempts to separate the augers I had a strange feeling that something was going to go wrong, so I decided to walk away and get clear. As I was walking away I heard a bang and a 2-inch chain link fly past me like a bullet whistling in the air. © BiffChildFromBangor / Reddit

• My sister since she was about 5 was always obsessed with tsunamis and would always ask my dad every night before she went to sleep if there would be a tsunami that night (we lived on a beach).
  About 5 years later when our family was holidaying in Samoa an earthquake struck at about 6am. It was only a dull low rumble but went on for over a minute. Everyone at the resort woke up and went outside for a few minutes then went back to bed. My sister having been obsessed with tsunamis ran down to look at the water and noticed the sea going out and saved a lot of lives including my own.
  There was about a minute from her noticing until the tsunami hit. Luckily for us there was a cliff right behind the resort. So it was something like a gut feeling 5 years in the making. © MWizzle / Reddit

We’ve all experienced unbelievable moments at one point in our lives, for better or worse. However, some people lived through situations so eerie and bizarre that they lack a logical explanation for them. It’s those stories they’re most afraid to share with people in their life, and they found a safe space in anonymity online. Read their stories here.