25 Times People Were Grateful They Trusted Their Gut Instincts

Reddit is a treasure trove of personal anecdotes and experiences, often revealing the raw, unfiltered emotions of people from all walks of life. One such thread asked users to share their scariest “We need to leave… now” gut feelings, and the responses ranged from chilling encounters to instinctive escapes from potentially dangerous situations.

#1

Image source: DueTangerine2539, Adam Winger / unsplash (not the actual photo)

When I was around 9 or 10 my mom took me with her on a business trip to a nearby city. This is before smartphones when you still had to Mapquest stuff. We were supposed to meet my mom’s friend/coworker at the mall for something. Since her friend had given her directions we didn’t bother going down to the hotel computer to print directions (I think there was maybe 1 there, this was around 2000-2001).

We got lost and ended up pulling into a small storage unit place to pull out a map. It was just two rectangular buildings, maybe a total of like 20 units. I don’t remember why, exactly, but I was really scared and kept crying and asking if we could just go back to the hotel. I assume she got fed up with her kid crying in the passenger seat and she couldn’t quite figure out where we were, so we went back to the hotel.

The next day they found the bodies of two teenagers in one of the units we pulled in front of.

#2

I usually tour by myself (split boarding which means the board you can ski up the hill with skins on the bottom, then you assemble it into a snowboard at the top) which isn’t recommended because you should have a buddy to dig you out if there is an avalanche.

Because of that I stick to terrain know well and absolutely won’t slide.

Headed up on a settled day but something just felt off. Snow was supposed to be stable at this point with recent weather but it just wasn’t acting like it should. Got passed by 2 other guys heading up and decided to turn around. Now that somebody was above me I felt like it could be triggered out of my control.

I was the last person to see these 2 guys before SAR recovered their bodies. Freak avalanche.

Image source: DinosaurDied

#3

Image source: Mack_turnzie, Maria Oswalt / unsplash (not the actual photo)

I’m a teenage girl who worked at a restaurant/pizza shop. I was harassed by these two men one weekend who were totally wasted, so they were kicked. The following weekend they return, and they tried to sit next to me (at counter which is connected to Bar) but they couldn’t so they chose a table across from me and moved both their seats to look right at me, then would only order from my counter instead of our waitresses, were staring at me, making jokes about k*lling a girl, and kind of just freaking me out.

I ended up going to our upstairs employees only section to fold boxes (up there all alone down and hallway where nobody would hear me), I ended up feeling sick to my stomach as I heard someone walk up the stairs and whispering and I closed the door and turned my music off and texted me mom. The two followed me up there, then tried to go down the unlocked hallway but another waitress noticed them bothering me and caught them trying to come after me.

I just had a gut feeling as I heard them coming and she came down the hallway and told me to be quiet and hold our body weight against the door. We waited for them to leave as they stood there, waiting for me to come out before making some remarks about not knowing where I was then going back down. My dad came and picked me up early because I just felt so off. The following day I had to come in for another shift and as I was clocking out the TV’s started playing a true crime documentary on a girl with the same name as me who was kidnapped and assaulted by two men. My stomach dropped and shortly gave my notice after that. I realized I wasn’t going to be protected there and wouldn’t be surprised if they returned again.

#4

Years ago when I was still living at home with the parents I drove home around 2 am. As I parked my car I noticed a man walking down the street….I decided to wait until he passed my car and was far enough for me to get out, however, instead he passed my car and hid behind the van that was directly parked behind me. I guess he did not think I was paying attention to him. So I called my dad who was asleep to come down and get me. He did and when the guy saw my dad he immediately ran away. I was lucky.

Image source: Silvercitymtl

#5

Image source: YouThinkYouKnowStuff, PJ Gal-Szabo / unsplash (not the actual photo)

I was in Taco Bell with my daughter and I saw a guy come in and back out with a T-shirt over his hand.
I told her to dump her tray and get moving. We went out to the car quickly and left. Found out later on the news that the guy robbed the place with the gun hiding under his T-shirt.

#6

Image source: Willowed-Wisp, Curtis Adams / pexels (not the actual photo)

Does an “I need to go home now” feeling count? And it wasn’t me, but my mom.

Anyway, I was around 12 or so and my mom left to run an errand, leaving me alone. Very soon after she left, the doorbell rang. This was weird because we lived on a hill with only two neighbors (we all kept to ourselves) and we just… didn’t get random visitors. Thanks to some conveniently placed picture frames, I could see out the door without being seen. I look out and see a young man I don’t recognize. He’s dressed in a tshirt and jeans and something just feels… off. So I ignore him and wait for him to leave.

But he doesn’t. He lingers and starts smoking. Again, this is an isolated hill, I’m alone, and now I’m getting scared. I go and hide and plan to wait for my mom. Except she JUST left, had a few errands to run, and I couldn’t reach the phone without the guy seeing me.

As I’m trying to figure out what to do… my mom comes home. She runs in and asks if I’m okay. Apparently she got this random “go home NOW” urge. She hadn’t even run her first errand yet but turned around immediately. Found the guy in our yard and asked what he needed. I guess he muttered something about looking for someone, or something to that effect, and my mom told him to leave. Apparently he was acting very strangely and made my mom nervous.

To this day I have no idea what he wanted, and no idea how my mom knew to come home. But I am VERY grateful she did.

#7

Image source: MatrixVirus, Ralph W. lambrecht / pexels (not the actual photo)

I was at a family gathering, basically a reunion but just for family within reasonable driving distance, probably 30 people all together. It was at county park on a small lake with some grills and buildings (just an empty hall with some picknick tables inside) you could rent for this kinda stuff. The sky started darkening as a storm was approching, all the coolers, chairs, balls and other kids toys, etc. were brought into the building anticipating the rain. The plan was to wait it out since afternoon showers are common just about every day in the summer. Something in the air didnt feel or smell right even though it appeared to be just a regular afternoon storm. Hair on my neck was standing up and I was in full flight mode. Cant really descibe it, the feeling in the pit of my stomach can only be decribed as absolute dread. I told my wife to take my daughter and get in the car. My brother in law took one look at my face and said whats wrong.. apparently I was white as a ghost. It wasnt even raining yet and I was full on panic yelling for everyone to leave, something isnt right. No one else was that worried, mostly concerned with how I was acting. I went out to the car and as soon as I was about to turn the key the tornado sirens went off. We were not far from wherever they put those (or they are just stupidly loud), because it was deafeningly loud. Now the rest of the family is pouring out of the building to their cars, kids crying, and I look across the lake maybe a few miles in the distance and see a funnel cloud. Got the hell out of there, as did everyone else. The building we had rented for this family bbq thing was completely annihilated…literally just a slab of concrete and a s**t ton of debris all around. It was hit dead on by an EF3.

#8

Image source: Ambam3434, Dmitry Kropachev / unsplash (not the actual photo)

My brother and I were kids, playing hide and seek in the front yard of our house. My brother was 3, and I was 6. My brother was supposed to be counting and finding me, but he was taking forever, so I peeked around the side of the house to see what was taking so long. He had lost interest in the game and was standing near the front gate, which led to the street. As I’m looking, I see a brown car pull up with two men inside. The car wasn’t familiar, and neither were the men. They both got out of the car and approached my brother. They started asking him questions and moving closer to him. I remember feeling panicked. I had learned about stranger danger in school and knew this wasn’t right. I ran around the side of the house, flew through the back door, and screamed, “Someone is trying to kidnap Steve!” My dad didn’t hesitate. He got up and flew through the front door. When the men saw my dad coming through the door, they bolted and peeled out. From that day forward, we weren’t allowed to play in the front yard anymore. It’s a really scary memory for me.

#9

Image source: ScoobyScoob, Christian SPULLER / unspalsh (not the actual photo)

We were driving back from an impromptu family vacation. My husband and I were both driving cars (too many people, not enough alert drivers) and I was following him. We were in the left lane passing a truck and I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that we needed to slow way down and move over *immediately.* I called him and told him that we needed to get over, go slower than the truck, and turn our hazards on. He thought I was a little crazy but he’s learned to listen to my gut feelings and did it. Suddenly we ran into a freak ice storm and the truck slipped off the road, the car that went past us on the left slid into oncoming traffic, and 3 other cars behind us proceeded to slide off the road. There was a big dip on the side of the road and one of the cars even tipped over. We somehow came through unscathed and made it home safely.

Another time I was driving to work and I was behind a work van with ladders on top of it. It wasn’t particularly busy on the highway but someone was behind me somewhat close. I had a horrible feeling wash over me that I needed to move over right away. I moved one lane over about 15 seconds before one of the ladders flew off the van. It hit the road right next to me and the car that was behind me ran over it a little but luckily wasn’t impaled or anything.

I’ve had this feeling several times in my life and have even cancelled entire vacations over it. I don’t know if anything would’ve happened for several of them, but I truly think I’ve avoided some serious trouble.

#10

Image source: lavenderacid, Markus Spiske / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Me and my little sister went camping in the woods very close to our house when we were kids. We’d seen this bald guy with a blue shirt and a dog walking around, which isn’t unusual for the area, you’ll often see people walking and say hello. For some reason though, I just got this tight feeling in my chest, and my sister must have too, because we both just gave each other this look. I don’t know what it was that made me do it, this is very out of character for me, but I took a photo of the back of him as he was walking away.

A while later, we see the same guy AGAIN near the lake. He comes over and asks about the tent we’re carrying, where we’ll be setting up, and are we camping with our dad? We say yes, we’re just going to see him now (a lie).

We must have had the same moment of psychic-ness, because we walked off up a fork in the path until we were out of view, then looked at each other and jumped down a path hidden by the bushes and waited behind them on the parallel trail for a bit. The guy watched us walk off, pretended to play with his dog until he couldn’t see us, then turned around and ran up the path after us. Thankfully he didn’t see us hidden and carried on up straight where he thought we’d gone. We decided camping was a bad idea and went home.

That evening my mum shows us a post in the local residents group, which is a picture of **the same bald guy** trying to break into someone’s house. Apparently he’d just been walking round trying people’s front doors and claimed to be a repair guy when he was stopped. I dread to f*****g think what his intentions were, but it was very lucky me and my sister knew those woods so well, otherwise we wouldn’t have thought to go down one of the hidden paths.

#11

Image source: drawnnquarter, Onur Binay / unspalsh (not the actual photo)

I stopped by a friend’s house to watch a ball game, he, his wife and I were just relaxing and someone knocked on the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, he opened it up, he was expecting others might come by also. I hear him greeting someone, the guy was his brother I had never met, but had heard about. Very sketchy looking guy, meth teeth, scrawny, long greasy hair, my friend had told me that he had a brother who lived in the area who had a serious d**g problem.

Buddy is talking to his brother about nothing and the guy gets a call on his cell, whoever called, all he told them was “not yet, I’ll call you later”. Seems pretty obvious this guy has come to rob and most likely to take out witnesses, I look at my buddy, it seems he has come to the same conclusion. Now my buddy’s wife is a no nonsense type of woman, sweet, but athletic, on the tall side, she had left the room to go to the bathroom, or so she said.

She comes back in the room with a handgun, I’m thinking “WTF did I walk into”, but she calmly says “Ron, you’re strung out and came here with bad intentions, you need to quietly leave, if you get any ideas, Chris, their son, is sitting outside in his truck to make sure you go.”

Ron doesn’t say a word, he just turn and goes out the door, we can hear his old pickup drive away rapidly. Chris come in and says “he’s gone, I don’t think he’s coming back”. The ask me to leave so they can decide what to do, they have already called the police, who are well acquainted with Ron.

The next morning my buddy calls me, the police said they found his brother in the trailer park where he lived, m**dered with multiple gunshots. They are guessing he was in serious d*ug debt and had come to rob his brother. I told my buddy I was sorry, he said “don’t be”.

#12

Image source: Werm_Vessel, Jeremy Bishop / unspalsh (not the actual photo)

Surfing a fairly secluded reef-break, offshore across a channel. This place is in a very southern state of Australia.

Overcast weather, but a still, amazing day for the waves. I was surfing with only one other guy – we were trading waves and getting to know each other in between sets.

I asked what he did for a living and he was a marine biologist. We’d both recently moved to the area and were new to surfing it as well.

Despite it being extremely good surf, after 40 mins he says, “I don’t like this, something feels off, I feel like I’m being watched, like I’m bait”.

I didn’t want to leave as it was excellent surf, but this guy was a marine biologist so I took his instinct as a sign to play it safe. We paddled back across the deep channel together as quickly as we could without panicking and walked the 15 mins trek back to the carpark talking s**t the whole way. I got his mobile number for future surfs together given how small-town it is here and not knowing anyone.

We noticed a 15ft inflatable boat pull up near the reef and hang around for a bit without much thought. Later that night while looking at my social media, I read about three fisherman at the same location we were at that morning, at the same time – in their boat; as they pulled up to check their cray pots on the beach side of the reef, they were circled twice by a great white shark that was as big as their boat.

That guy most likely saved me from a horrible experience that day, I messaged him with the link to the Facebook page with the comments regarding their experience. Chills ran through my body for a good twenty mins. He was adamant he felt the presence of something and he was right.

#13

Image source: Adler221, camilo jimenez / unsplash (not the actual photo)

I was 12 at the time, and my favorite thing in the world was spending the night at my grandma’s house. We lived in the sticks at the time, and my grandma lived closer to the nearest town. Thursday night was grandma’s night.

I felt something off one Thursday night and asked my mom if I could just stay home with my mom and dad. They reluctantly agreed. I went home, watched some TV, and went to bed. My bedroom was on the adjoining wall to the living room.

I wasn’t really asleep but I heard my mom keep saying my dad’s name over and over again, with a hint of panic. I sneak out to the living room, and my dad is on the couch with his head tilted back, snoring, really loud. Which wasn’t uncommon but my mom was beside him shaking him and telling him to wake up. She yelled at me to go back to bed.

I didn’t obviously. I snuck to their bedroom to call 911. I told the dispatcher that my dad was asleep and my mom was trying to wake him up but she couldn’t. Eventually the phonecall went to the living room and my mom talked to the dispatcher. They sent an ambulance, to the middle of nowhere. My dad had taken a bottle of diazepam to try to commit s**cide.

I remember sitting on the floor and holding his hand and repeating over and over that I loved him. The ambulance came, and took him to the hospital. Lights and sirens the whole way. We didn’t know what happened during that time but we found out a day or so later and that is when our world changed.

I am very sure if I did not call 911 that night that my dad would have succeeded and it would have probably have drove my mom over the edge as well. And I have no idea why I didn’t want to stay the night at my nanny’s. I just had that feeling that I needed to go home.

#14

Image source: tomyownrhythm, Randy Fath / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Sitting in my friends’ backyard with their two kids, my husband,and another friend, enjoying pizza that my host made. It was a beautiful, clear day with no real wind. We’re having a great time, just out of the pool and hungry for pizza, when I suddenly felt on edge. I looked straight at the kids (about 8 and 10 or so years old) and just said “get in the house.” We all scramble and a second later we heard creaking, and maybe 5 seconds after it started, this big branch fell off of their pine tree onto the table where we were sitting. Thankfully no one was hurt besides having to pick pine needles out of our pizza. I can only assume that I subconsciously heard the branch starting to give.

#15

I was a high school teenager around 13 (I’m petite and look way younger, so looked at least 10/11). I was in my school uniform on my way to school and our local shopkeeper stops me. Starts talking to me as usual and asks me what my plans are for the day. I look down at my uniform and tell him I’m going to school. He asks me if there’s anything interesting happening and I responded with “as a matter of fact, we have a mini trip for my Geography class”. So he offers me a few snacks which I declined. Now, the reason I declined it was, because he was speaking to me from the back door of the shop and asked me to come to the back store room to collect the free snacks. I started feeling really strange and declined and said I have to go, I’m getting late. He then asked me for my number and I got freaked out and said I don’t have a phone and ran. I remember him shouting something at me, but I was too scared to hear him out. When I got back from school, I told my parents about it and my father went storming to the shop to confront. Well the coward of a man hid while the owner of the shop apologised.
It made me wonder, if I was a naive teenager who actually walked in for the free snacks, thinking he was being friendly, what would this grown man have done to me? Keep in mind, he looked like he was in his early 30s and I was 13 in my school uniform, looking like a 10 year old.
I’ve had a few close calls as a young girl, but this one stood out the most to me.

Image source: MiserableVoice9146

#16

Image source: gl_zzygod, Pau Casals / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Standing outside my friend’s house watering their garden while they were away on vacation. — not even 30 seconds after i shut the door & locked it about 6 men started pounding on the door,, reaching in the mail slot trying to unlock said door,, telling me to come out + calling me cutie & other degrading pet names.

#17

Image source: coreysgal, Sebastian Pociecha / unspalsh (not the actual photo)

Years ago, before cell phones, I was driving home from dropping my husband at the train at 4:30am. Only me and one other car on the road. He started turning where I turned twice so I didn’t go home, I went to an all night gas station and called the police. I gave them a description of his car. 3 weeks later, he was arrested. Turns out he was following women home and driving past their house and doubling back to r*pe them. No one had noticed his car. I’m glad I paid attention.

#18

Image source: ZestyGolf7654, Antoine J / unspalsh (not the actual photo)

Years ago I was at a club with some friends. I was at the bar and for some reason looked down at the other end of the bar and saw 2 guys quietly arguing. They tried to keep from being overheard but I saw their agitated face. I went to back to my group of friends and told them we should go. This was a popular club and it took us forever to get in so they didn’t want to leave.

I don’t know what came over me but I picked up my friend’s girlfriend (she was barely 5’ tall) and started walking to the door. She was kicking the entire time and the rest of the party followed me outside telling me to put her down.

When we got outside, we heard the distant “pop pop” and people screaming. We looked at each other for a second then ran for our cars. I forgot to put her down and was still carrying her over my shoulders.

Update: Dang, I didn’t think this would blow up. It was the early 1990s and we were at a club in Miami. If I recall correctly from the local news, it was a d**g deal that went bad between 2 groups. No one was k*lled but they wounded each other and a couple of innocent people.

LOL, I’m still not carrying her today, the legend are false. Those two eventually got married and they mentioned me in their speech, something about the other groomsmen holding me back so that I don’t get the urge to carry her across the doorway.

#19

When we were in our teens, my sister and I were walking our dog in our local forest area very close to our childhood home. We were about to leave and had just clipped our dog back up, when a lady appeared out of nowhere and started chatting to us. She was…odd.

She told us her dog would love some socialisation with our dog and could we go back with her for five minutes. What I hadn’t clocked, but my sister had, was that her dog was nowhere to be seen. The lady was almost rounding us up to head back towards the forest when (little did I know) my sister had spotted a van out of the corner of her eye. I was still oblivious at this point.

Suddenly, my sister screams ‘DAD!!’ and to our luck, my dad had finished work and was now out on a run. He starts waving and running towards us and as we turn back around the lady had vanished.

My sister looks back over at the van and sees the lady closing the passenger door and it speeding off. Dog still nowhere to be seen. I believe we were minutes away from abduction. It was divine intervention that my dad happened to be at the right place at the right time!

Image source: Winter_Commercial400

#20

Picture it, 1994. I was 18 and waitressing in a sports bar. A comedy club was upstairs. One night a comedian kept visiting between sets. He was funny and charming, and he seemed quite smitten with me. He asked me out to late night breakfast. If you’ve ever been in hospitality, you know we go out and eat at 3:00am. I changed after my shift and waited a few minutes for him. I realized I really didn’t know this person, and I should not let him in my car. I decided to be smart and GTFO. A few years later I was absentmindedly flipping through a People magazine at a friend’s house. That is when I saw my comedian date, Vince Champ, had been arrested as a serial r*pist. His favorite target was young college girls and they finally caught him after putting the puzzle together between victims and his campus circuit. Holy s**t I dodged a bullet!! I think he may still be in jail; he was that terrible.

Image source: AwwAnl-4355