16 People Whose Intuition Saved Them at the Very Last Minute

It’s that inexplainable feeling that probably makes no sense at the moment, but later, you might be glad you listened to it. It’s that knowing that gnaws at you and whether it whispers or shouts, it urges you into action and the consequences of not heeding it might be a story you’d hate to read. Well, these 16 people totally listened, and now their stories are brighter than they could’ve been, had they hesitated for even a second.

1. A step in the right direction

I was staying the night at my grandma’s house and I had to get up to use the restroom. I was walking in the dark and I stopped. I had this bad feeling, so I switched on the light.

Right in my pathway, a couple feet away, was a baby scorpion. I had a huge chance of getting stung. © Ashlei96 / Reddit

2. A mother’s intuition

I was 24 weeks pregnant with twins and had 3 Braxton hicks contractions (“fake contractions”). With twins, I was allowed up to 8 an hour, but it didn’t feel right, so I went to my doctor.

Long story short, I was dilated and if I hadn’t gotten checked I would’ve given birth at 24 weeks. Instead, they were able to hold the labor off another 4. Still early at 28 weeks but 4 weeks better than 24. © HipposRDangerous / Reddit

3. The bad reaction

I have a severe peanut allergy. Went to a restaurant and asked if their food or sauce had peanuts. They said that there wasn’t any peanuts, so we ordered some of it for the day after for a gathering.

I ate some of it and immediately felt bad, I thought that maybe the heat was getting to me, so I stopped eating and told my dad I wasn’t feeling too well. I didn’t think anything was too bad until a couple minutes later. Something just came out of nowhere and I told him I needed a hospital.

One car ride later, I was breaking out into rashes and was throwing up. Got the treatment I needed, and I’m still here, luckily. Ironically, I experienced this the day of teaching younger kids about severe food-related allergies. © Lucky_Se7enX / Reddit

4. A deck of a disaster

One time my dad was grilling and even though we’ve grilled hundreds of times before on our deck, I had a gut feeling that I should check to see if any red flakes from the charcoal had gone astray.

I looked down below our deck and sure enough, one was caught perfectly in the right spot to stay alive and start a fire. I immediately got water and put it out. © S-Elena / Reddit

5. “Not sure what I avoided, but sure glad I did.”

Was heading to my car in my buildings’ parking garage, on my way to work. A van was parked next to my car with a man inside. He motioned for me to come around to his door, pointing to something in his car to try to get me to come look.

I had a bad feeling, so I just shook my head and got in my car. I look over, and he’s getting out of the van — I quickly start driving off and notice there’s a second man crouched behind a dumpster that was near the van. © Mariospario / Reddit

6. An intuitive vet

I gave a vaccine to a toy breed dog today who has had this vaccine before with no problems. Immediately after giving the shot, he just looked slightly off to me. Maybe just more quiet than usual. All vitals normal. But just not quite his typical happy self.

My gut said, “Ehhh this is not right.” I asked the owner to wait 15 minutes before leaving to make sure no vaccine reaction. 5 minutes later, he had an anaphylactic seizure in my lobby. Was ready for it.

Immediate emergency treatment for anaphylaxis. One hour later — barking his head off incessantly in my treatment room to tell me he’s ready to go home. © tricurisvulpis / Reddit

7. Intruder alert

When I was in college, my boyfriend and I lived in an apartment. One day, when I was home alone, two guys knock on my door. I open up, and they give me some story about donating to a charity. I was dumb and said, “Ok, sure, let me get my purse.”

When I turn around, they are inside the foyer, blocking the front door. I instantly get nervous and start fumbling with my checks...to which they say they don’t take checks, just cash. Then, they ask if anyone else is there, and I say, “Yes, my boyfriend is sleeping.”

I like to think I said that convincingly enough, and I said, “Let me go see if he has cash.” I went into my bedroom to see if I had a something to protect myself, just in case, but I heard the door close, and they were gone. © HistrioHistrio / Reddit

8. Something slithery

I was in the woods looking for critters, and I found this big piece of plywood that would’ve been perfect for reptiles and amphibians to hide under. So I go to lift it up, but I have this moment of “what if there’s something right where I’m gonna put my hands” so I grab a stick to lift it up and underneath was a copperhead.

It wasn’t right where I was gonna grab, so not sure if it would’ve been able to bite me, but definitely a good cautionary tale. © futterguy1 / Reddit

9. “Be very careful.”

I woke up one morning with a deep sense of “be very careful today.” Around mid-afternoon, I was stopped at a red light. One where you had zero site of the direction left of the intersection.

The light turned green, I felt the “be very careful” gloom again, I started to pull into the intersection very slowly, looking carefully in the direction I couldn’t see from, it was now a good 5 seconds after the light changed. The horn behind me was blowing.

When zoooooom, a semi came flying past the nose of my truck. How it didn’t hit me, I have no idea, had to have missed me by literally a hair. After that, I didn’t feel that “gloom” the rest of the day/night. © BaluePeach / Reddit

10. Something off in the backyard

When I was about 9–10 years old, I used to water my neighbor’s plants for her when she was on vacation. Normally my older brother and I went together, but the previous day we got into a giant argument-turned-water-fight while doing the task, so my mom decided we would go alone on alternate days for the rest of her trip.

I started by dragging the hose from the side yard to the front. I noticed the back sliding screen door was in the center, where I thought it was usually to the side. I got the hose to the front door. Then, all of a sudden, had a gut feeling something was off, and I needed to get out of there.

I dropped the hose and went back to my house next door. When my mom and I returned that evening, the back window was broken and my neighbor’s house had been robbed. The burglars were probably inside while I was outside watering the plants. We were both terrified and called the police, of course. © yawinsomeyalosesome / Reddit

11. Oh deer!

I used to just drive around country roads when I would feel stressed out or sad and just listen to music. One evening, I was driving with my best friend in the car, and we’re on a gravel road that has a huge hill. We were driving towards the sunset, but it was winter and the light was fading fast.

As the car started down the hill I had this moment where I thought to myself “my brights should be on” and I flicked them on and at the bottom of this super steep hill stood 6 deer on the road. I slammed on the brakes and the car turned sideways and skidded to a stop like 4 feet from the deer.

Those deer didn’t even move, they just stared into the passenger side of my car and my best friend pointed at them and said “hey, deer”. The car was fine, we were fine, and Bambi was all good. I don’t drive around like that anymore. © unhiddenninja / Reddit

12. A bin journey saves from a glass catastrophe.

Decided I should empty the bin on my way to University, which added maybe 10 seconds to my journey as the skip was 10ft from my front door.

Began my walk to Uni and roughly 10 seconds of walking in front of me someone from the third floor flat threw a load of glass out his window smashing all over the path. © _helloalien / Reddit

13. “I don’t like the way this is going.”

I’m a volunteer firefighter. We were at a house fire and had just evacuated the house of all personnel due to worsening conditions inside. We were moving to a “surround and drown” defense. I was at the front door with my partner manning the hose line.

I told her to “pack up” (put on our SCBA gear), despite almost everyone else not wearing theirs. In fact, I said, “I don’t like the way this is going” to her. Something felt off to me. She was still packing up when there was some kind of explosion...likely smoke. Not really sure. Definitely wasn’t a backdraft though.

I remember hearing a distinct “Wooof!” noise and seeing a wall of orange coming at me, then looking up at the sky. It blew me out the door, off the stairs and onto the ground. She had luckily stepped off the stairs to pack up, so she was fine too. If I hadn’t packed up when I did, I would’ve likely been horrifically injured or worse. © CrazyIslander / Reddit

14. Grandma to the rescue

My Grandparents live in a fairly rural area, more so back in the day. When my mum was about 3 she was in a pram and my Gran was pushing her along the side of the road towards town. My mum had been wriggling about and wanting to walk for ages, and eventually she made so much fuss my Gran stopped to let her out.

So mum had her hands on the pram and was helping to push it when a tractor pulling a trailer passed them on the hill heading up back towards the farm. Granny suddenly had the urge to grip my mum’s shoulders really tight and when she turned round the trailer had come loose from the tractor and was rolling back down the hill gathering such a speed it ripped the pram right out of their hands and off the road.

So I guess my Gran’s tiny action saved 6 lives — hers, mum’s, my aunty who wasn’t born at this point, mine, my brother’s and my cousin’s. © therisingsun0510 / Reddit

15. Big sister’s always know.

My younger sister and I decided to bake a cake. She was happily mixing the ingredients that I was handing to her. I looked away for literally a second, then turned back to put the mixture in the preheated oven. Immediately, something seemed off.

I snatched the mixture out of the oven and I don’t know why, but I stuck my hand into it and pulled out my sister’s plastic doll. She had buried it into the cake mixture. She said she wanted to make a doll cake. I have never baked with her ever since.

16. “Turn now!”

One afternoon, my husband, daughter, and I were driving home from the park down a gentle incline. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of place. Then, out of nowhere, I felt this gut-deep instinct scream at me: “Turn right. Right now.”

A split second later, this dude literally speeds out of a McDonald’s located on the left of us (completely passing over the middle lane to safely merge into ours) and would have T-boned us fairly hard had it not been for a gut reaction. I can’t remember if I saw the guy pulling out or had the gut feeling first, but there was a convenient entrance into a mall when I yanked my car away from his, and we just glided right into the parking lot.

I slammed my brakes, put the car in park and made sure everyone was okay. My husband said, “Babe... How did you do that?” I usually am not good at “thinking on my feet” but I’m glad I managed it this time. I think it comes with having a baby. © Unknown author / Reddit

Sometimes intuition saves lives, and other times it gives you those once in a lifetime moments. Here are 10 more times when intuition spoke and people listened.