80 Life-or-Death Moments When Gut Feelings Became Unshakeable Lifelines
In 2016 my wife and I were in Berlin to explore and visit the Christmas markets. The plan for that evening was to go out to eat and then get the train back to stop into the markets at Breitscheidplatz as it was close to our hotel, this had been the plan for the entire trip as it was the last night.
We had finished our meal and were headed to the train station. Just as we were about to board the train, my wife decided that she didn’t want to go the the markets at Breitscheidplatz and would prefer to double back to a smaller one we had passed on the walk from the restaurant to the station. I, being a stubborn p***k, didn’t want to change the plans but she got her way and we headed back, staying at the smaller market for about 30 minutes.
After finally getting the train back, we got off and walked towards our hotel. After a minute or so there appeared a seemingly never ending stream of emergency vehicles. Not knowing what was going on, but obviously something serious, we speeded up and locked ourselves in the hotel room. We had the English language 24 news channel on and after about an hour, reports started to come through about a terrorist attack. A man had driven a truck into a crowd at the Breitscheidplatz market. Obviously I’ll never know if we would have been in the exact spot, but we definately would have been there at the same time, and I am never allowed to complain about my wife changing her mind, ever again.
I was walking with a friend back to his house and I had that “something don’t feel right”. I noticed some dudes walking around in Hoodies all with their hands in their pockets. Now I aint an idiot I know what’s gonna happen. It took some time trying to subtly convince my friend to walk a different path but we eventually did and got to his house. Literally next morning on the news a massive gang shoot-out happened on the same street we were passing leaving 4 people dead.
I was driving on a one lane highway (the kind that has one lane each way). I was behind a very old clunker of a car going 60mph in an 80mph.
The dude in the car leaned out his arm from the window and waved me on, they actually even veered a bit to the right towards the shoulder as well and slowed down. They gave me every reasonable indication they were going to let me pass. Traffic from the incoming side was clear, we’re in a dashed line zone, so I start passing. Out of no where this old clunker starts taking taking a left turn, across the lane I am now passing in.
I think the arm wave was their stupid-a*s attempt at “signaling” they were going to take a left. I almost hit them at 80mph t-boned. I would have probably died, and they almost certainly would have given the age of the tin can they were in. I hit my breaks as best I could while maintaining control, and then veered to the right. I narrowly missed them. Honestly the reaction was pure “instinct” it happened within a second or so, and I’m still surprised I pulled it off.
When I was 7 or 8 yo, we lived in the “Jungle” area of Franklin Park, IL at the end of the first 747 runway in the late 1960s/early 70s (when the 747s went over blotted out the sun and you couldn’t hear anything over the engine roar for a full minute- planes are a LOT quieter these days). It was all apartments and it was well known for pimps and d***s and factories. My brother and his friend and I were playing by a factory that was being build out of cement blocks. My brother and his buddy made a fort out of some blocks and they found a piece of plywood to act as a top. One afternoon a serious storm started to blow in and I knew there were tornado warnings. They wanted to stay in the fort for the storm because it would be really cool but after a VERY LOUD and close lightning strike I left and ran for our apartment. The storm lasted ~45 minutes and the wind and thunder were terrible. My brother never came home so afterward, I went looking for him. One of the walls of the factory that was under construction had collapsed and had fallen on our fort! It was flat as a pancake. I walked around trying to see if they were there, but there didn’t seem to be any smashed kids. Then I went home where my brother had just shown up and he said they had gone to his friend’s apartment after I left. I took him to see out fort and we just kinda never talked about it again…
I’m pretty sure I’ve told this before, but when I was 12 I started getting allergy shots. It’s a 5 year program where you gradually build up immunity. Supposedly after 5 years your body will no longer attack those allergens. And the way they do it is start with a really tiny dose, and build up over the course of many months, you get to a peak level, and then stay there for a while, and then you start over at a low level and get to a peak level over time, etc. etc.
Anyway, when I was 16 (so 4 years into the program) I got my shots. And it was at the peak level, which I had been at for a while. You are required to stay 15 minutes in case of a reaction, and then you can go. My dad was with me and after the 15 minutes were up, he said we could go. I felt fine, but had this moment where I suggested we just wait for five more minutes. Within that time, I started having trouble breathing.
