80 Life-or-Death Moments When Gut Feelings Became Unshakeable Lifelines
Thanks for all the well wishes!
I went to my urologist with epididymitis. He found the smallest amount of detectable blood in my urine. On a whim, he sent me to have an IVP (They put dye in your blood and radiologist has a look) He saw a mass on my left kidney. 20 minutes later I knew I had cancer when I saw the blood supply to the mass. That was on Thursday. Tests Friday. Monday he took out my kidney with a grapefruit size stage 3 tumor. There was no margin. Many years later my wife told me the doctor told her that I had a 50/50 chance of living 6 months. That was 1992. Lucky me.
Former professional motorcycle instructor here.
I was riding a motorcycle at night on Highway 17 in Northern California—an infamously dangerous and twisty mountain pass with low-visibility around most corners. Each direction of the highway has 2 lanes.
For no particular reason, I decided to change lanes. Around the next corner, there was a washing machine in my original lane that was only visible after it would have been too late to avoid. At highway speeds, a collision like that would have sent me to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
That one still messes with my head.
When I was 14 my cousin and I found my uncle’s gun stash in his closet. My cousin grabbed a pistol and pointed it at my head with is finger on the trigger.
I quickly told him to stop and that’s not funny.
He glared at me and told me it’s not loaded while he pointed it at the floor and pulled the trigger. Gun was loaded and blew a big hole in the floor.
I think about this a lot. I brought it up once to my cousin and he started to cry. That experience cut us both deep.
My mom.
I was almost 15. I had put on a lot of water weight and she was worried about it. Finally I was in pain and she realized it was literally just water weight so took me to the hospital.
First ER was like “oh yeah it’s just thyroid, take this and follow up with your doctor.”
Mom waited a few hours but felt uncomfortable. So she drove me to another ER who told her if she hadn’t gotten me in when she did, I would have died before the follow up. My kidneys had failed.
I’m better now.
Gut decision eh? I had a change in my bowel movements, went to the doctor, got screened for colon polyps, and had a huge one removed. It would’ve eventually turned into cancer. Scopes aren’t fun, but they save lives.
I was drinking and felt something stick in the back of my throat. I almost forced it down because it was really far back and awkward to cough up, but I decided to spit it out anyways.
It was a shard of glass from the bottle I was drinking out of. It still creeps me out to think about even years later because I REALLY was just going to swallow it.
Mid-1990s. Traveled to northern New Jersey with a friend from college. It was his hometown. We had plans to visit New York city and see a former roommate who graduated the year before (friend 2).
Well, apprently Friend 2 dabbled in low-level organized crime since his last years in college. We had some knowledge of this but were not involved. He invited us to a an associate’s house with plans to go out afterward. We declined. Not our scene. In fact, both of us had applied to law school. I planned to pursue a career in federal law enforcement thereafter. We both wanted distance from that nonsense.
We tried the following day to reach our friend 2 for a low-key lunch before heading out of town. No answer. Well, local police found his body two days later, along with 2 other bodies, at the house to which he invited us. He was m******d at the meeting / social situation. Could have been us too.
I knew that was bad news.
I was 22 years old, backpacking through the patagonia for six months camping wherever I could. One day I was fishing by the lake with my camp already set down for the night save for starting the fire. I kept hearing rustling some 30m behind me in the tree line so I stared for a while hoping to see a deer or something. Next thing I know I’m staring down a puma right in the eyes. I started to get up ready to take a sprint but right as I was standing up I remembered I was warned against this so instead I grabbed some rocks from the ground and started throwing rocks and shouting and throwing my arms up in the air until it left me alone. That night I stayed up late next to the fire and then went to (try to) sleep scared as f**k. That was my only encounter with wildlife in the whole trip (save for birds and stuff).
Idk if it was a gut decision so much as just being knowledgeable and acting, but still I think it is a pretty wild instance of a near-death experience.
My family and I were on holiday in Thailand over the Christmas period years ago and were staying in a hotel close to the beach in Phuket. I was only 7 and my two brothers were even younger. We had been bugging my parents to go Jet-skiing for days on end, much to my parents annoyance, but on boxing day they finally relented.
