Ever gotten that feeling something just isn't quite right? The type of feeling where there's a sudden urge to flee a situation? These feelings may seem silly at the time, but they can save a person's life.
People on Reddit share the time they got a sudden feeling of danger, and knew they had to leave a situation. Content has been edited for clarity.
“I Knew What It Was Immediately”
“I used to climb up to the Hollywood Sign all the time. Took a bunch of friends there one night that had never been. This is in the late 2000s. Usually it’s just an uneventful climb other than some fairly steep parts. This time was different.
About half-way up I get a really weird feeling. Wasn’t sure what it was. Two steps later I hear this quickly repeating whistle-y sound. Unmistakable. I knew what it was immediately; I’d heard it once before in Northern California when I was in elementary school. I couldn’t see it right then in the Hollywood Hills, but I’d seen the source of the sound clearly when I was younger.
It was a freaking mountain lion.
I put my hand out sharply, straight behind me with my palm open towards everyone else. They told me later that they could tell by how much my body language changed that it was really serious. I leaned backwards while not breaking line of sight with where I thought the sound was coming from.
My friend leaned his chin up on my shoulder and I told him in calmest voice I could to make everyone start climbing down very slowly.
I think, because there were so many of us, we got away without incident. But the absolute stone-making fear I felt that night was intense. Going from laughing and having a good time to immediate silence and maximum sensory perception. It was wild. Never climbed to the sign again.”
“I’m So Glad We Did”
“I was a 13-year-old girl, camping with my best friend and her mom by a lake.
My friend’s mom was not the world’s best mother, and allowed my friend to get hammered. I had one drink, so I was a little tipsy, but still had my wits about me.
It was about 11 at night, and my very hammered friend randomly decided to go swimming, so I chased after her to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t hurt herself.
And god, I’m so glad I did.
Two men followed us out to the lake. We didn’t notice until my friend and I had swam a few dozen yards into the water. The men were very hammered, stumbling with bottles in hand. They were catcalling us as they waded into the water, getting closer and closer.
My friend was so hammered, and wanting so badly to seem cool to these grown up men. Hammered 13-year-olds aren’t the most rational thinkers. At first, she tried to respond to their questions.
But I knew something very bad would happen if we didn’t get away, so I repeatedly whispered to her, ‘They’re going to hurt us. They’re going to hurt us. We need to leave. Now!’
I think that finally knocked some sense in her inebriated brain, and she agreed to swim towards the shore with me (away from the men).
They called after us, asking where we were going, and my friend yelled, ‘AWAY FROM YOU!!’
Back then, I second-guessed myself and wondered if maybe I had been a little dramatic. But now, as an adult, I realize just how much danger we were in, and I’m so thankful that 13 year old me knew to trust her gut.”
Something Isn’t Right Here
“After my mother had surgery, I had a bad vibe even though she was at a nice, newly remodeled hospital. I insisted on staying with her in the hospital room. I couldn’t sleep. I called out to my mom, who talks even in her sleep, and asked how she was feeling. She didn’t answer me. I got up turned on all the lights and kept talking to her, she just moaned. I knew something was really wrong at this point. I turned her call light on and started shouting her first name. She didn’t even open her eyes. I ran into the hall and started shouting for a nurse NOW! RIGHT NOW! One nurse cussed at me for shouting in the hall after midnight. Another nurse came running. I was practically hysterical by this point. She just asked me which room. I ran into my mom’s room. By now, six or seven nurses and aides were following me. I was screaming, ‘Something is wrong with my mom!’
They began vitals and the oxygen monitor was at 45%. The nurse said something was wrong with this machine and started out of the room with it. I yanked it out of her hand and put it on my finger, up to 99%. I was bawling and screaming that it’s not the machine. It’s my mom! They got the crash cart and started oxygen. Turns out the pain pump they hooked up a half hour before was set up incorrectly and gave my mom an entire bag of morphine instead of a metered dose. They gave her four doses of Narcan and took her to ICU as soon as her heart rate came back up. She spent three weeks in ICU and had severe pneumonia. I never left her alone in any hospital again. She spent an extra month at home on oxygen. She is better now and is even able to fly again. It was a near-death incident for sure. She tells me I am her angel.”
“I Felt Like We Had To Get Out”
“I went to a movie on Halloween when I was in high school with my boyfriend at the time. It was a huge theatre where there was a staircase all the way to the top row that opened in the middle of the row so you could sit on either side of the opening. My boyfriend and I sat in the back row on one side of the opening. We were watching the movie and around 30-40 minutes after the movie started, a guy walked in by himself wearing a big sweater and sat on the other side of the opening.
He didn’t really DO anything at first but he gave me a bad feeling and I felt uncomfortable but I continued watching the movie. I noticed the guy seemed really nervous and wasn’t paying ANY attention to the movie. I really couldn’t figure out why but he was stressing me out big time and I just felt like we had to get the heck out of there. I told my boyfriend I was probably being silly but I wanted to leave. As we were leaving we informed the staff about the guy just in case.
Turns out they had been looking for him as people had reported seeing a guy of that description behaving strangely in the parking lot earlier. The police came and he apparently had quite a few large hunting knives hidden under his sweatshirt.”
A Nurse’s Instincts
“I’m an ICU nurse, so I’d say I have those gut feelings pretty often. I’ve walked into a patient’s room before and looked at their monitor and you just get a bad vibe. Sometimes they don’t even look all that different than they were a few hours ago. But you almost always know when it’s time to grab the crash cart. Sometimes I’ll even put the cart outside the room and say it’s to ward off evil spirits because the vibe coming off of them is so bad.
Patients sometimes know they’re going to die, too. They’ll say creepy things like, ‘It’s my time,’ and then sure enough, two hours later they code. When your patient has that sense of impending doom, you listen because 8 times out of 10, they are right!
I had one patient in particular who had overdosed on Imodium trying to get high and she threw herself into complete heart failure then coded in the ER. And she was unresponsive post-cardiac arrest so she was being cooled by this machine called the Arctic Sun. Halfway through my shift, I looked at her and was like, ‘Yeah, time for the pads.’ So I put the defibrillator pads on her under the Arctic Sun pads. Three hours later, we had to code her. If we’d had to fiddle with getting the defibrillator pads on her underneath the Arctic Sun pads, she would not have had nearly as good of an outcome. But because she was all ready to go, we only had to do two minutes of CPR and give her one shock and she was back up and running.”
“I Have Never Felt Panic Like That”
“At a summer camp, a buddy of mine and I climbed out onto a tin roof of a big hall that was built on the side of a steep hill. On one side you could climb out, right onto the roof, on the other side it was a three-story fall onto concrete. Being teenage idiots, we climbed from the low side over the peak of the sloped metal roof and were inching down towards the edge of the high side. We had sneakers on, and had pretty solid footing, so it wasn’t outrageously dangerous.
Then, out of nowhere, raindrops started falling. We both look at each and realize this is really bad and try to start backing up, but wherever there is even the slightest dampness, the metal is now completely slick. There is nothing to hold onto, the grip of the rubber shoes on dry metal was all we had. I look at him and see the panic in his eyes that I’m feeling, too. We are trying to move up this roof as fast as we can, and the raindrops are falling harder every second. I see him break completely free and start sliding down with his eyes frozen in terror. Somehow, miraculously, he stops sliding. I made it to the top scrambled down grabbed a branch and leaned back over the top, trying to give him something to grab. He eventually makes it high enough to grab the branch and I pull him up and over.
I have never felt panic like that. We were so lucky to make it out of there.”
“I Was Used To Being In Sketchy Situations”
“So I was 17, female, tiny, I’d been off of narcotics for about three weeks. I’d been drinking and I was staying in a hotel in Manhattan but I didn’t live in New York. My dad was there for work and I’d come with him. I walked downstairs to smoke and needed a lighter. I asked this group of men standing on the corner and one lit my American Spirit and asked if I’d like to go get a drink. I told him I was underage, he said no problem, he knew a place. Also I had no ID or money on me and I told him that too. This was before cell phones.
We went to a bar around the corner, and he started buying shots of Grey Goose. Now, there should’ve been all kinds of red flags, this man was at least twice my age. But I’d been addicted to narcotics for several years, and I was used to being in very sketchy situations but I’d been trying to get clean.
We were at this bar drinking and out of nowhere he goes, ‘You like to get high don’t you?’
I was like, ‘What kind of high are you talking about?’
He says, ‘I know where we can get some smack.’
I was pretty surprised, I didn’t think I came off as an addict and it isn’t really a substance that comes up in casual situations. But once I was hammered, and he mentioned it, my heart started racing.
I said ‘Let’s go.’
He said he had no way to get clean rigs (needles) and asked would I be okay sharing with him. It’s hard to explain how the brain works in those circumstances, because I immediately agreed even thought that’s an absurdly dangerous and stupid thing to do. We start walking. We get to the corner he said his guy was at. No one’s there. He starts explaining it’s actually a different corner. Every three blocks or so, he comes up with a story about why we have to walk farther. Then we come to a subway station, and he remembered the best H is actually in Harlem, we need to get on a train.
At this moment all I can think about is getting high, my mouth is watering, my brain can’t even stop for a moment to think about why this might be a bad idea. I get on the train with this guy. All of a sudden, I notice the guys from the original corner enter the train. But they don’t greet us, they just stand by the exits and nod to my companion. I suddenly became very aware that I was being set up in some way. There was no way this was going to end well for me. Suddenly in the middle of my junkie obsession, in my state of mind, I had the clearest thought: You don’t have to die like this. But you need to run. Now.
I mapped a path to the exit on the other side of my companion, away from the doors the other two were guarding. At the next stop I just bolted. They all ran after me. One of them caught my arm as I made it to the stairs. I screamed as loudly as I could. He let go for fear of public retaliation. I ran and I didn’t look back. I was somewhere in Harlem, in the middle of the night. I ran until I couldn’t catch my breath anymore. Then I walked forty blocks back to where I was staying. I went to bed that night and I swore I wouldn’t die that way. I haven’t used any type of substances since. I quit drinking and everything else as well, even smoking. I hear about all kinds of terrible things that happen to young girls and shudder to think how different my life may have been.”
“I Got The Coldest Chill Up My Spine”
“I was on a second date with a guy who wanted to stop at his house to grab something, and invited me in. He was super hot, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable with him for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on. We get to his house, and it was just. . creepy. He was well off, and the house itself was gorgeous. Spotless, and totally sterile. Nothing on the walls, every surface empty. No books. No CDs. Nothing.
I ask how long he’d lived there, and he said ‘five years.’
While he was in the kitchen, he then asked me to go into his room grab something (keys I think?) from the top drawer in his dresser. I got the coldest chill up my spine, and immediately stepped closer to the front door. There was NO way I was letting him come between me and the exit.
He asked me again to go to his room, and I uncomfortable laughed and said, ‘No dude, I’m hungry, let’s go!’
He asked one more time, visibly annoyed at this point, and I proceeded to pretend that I was a bratty ‘stupid’ girl, and made a fuss about being hungry and what the heck was taking him so long.
He was so mad at me. So I walked out of his house down the sidewalk and made him follow me. We got to the car, and I kept pretending to be a bratty clueless chick, and demanded he take me home. He did. In cold furious silence. Then, when he stopped the car in front of my place, he grabbed my face to kiss me goodbye. He bit my lip so hard I was bleeding, and he reached under my shirt and twisted my chest.
I luckily got him off me, falling out my door, and ran inside to the sound of him laughing. I ended up with a bruised face and chest, cut lip, and was scared that he knew where I lived, but I still feel like I survived a legit serial killer.”
“We Need To Leave This Place Right Now”
“I was camping with a friend in a backwoods camping area, not very many sites and they were all super spaced out. We had already been there one night, had the site fully set up, we had been hiking all day, the works. We drove into town to get some food, and when we were driving back to our secluded campsite we passed a man walking out of the only road to our site. We both locked eyes with him and I got a super creeped out feeling. He stared at us like he knew us and hated us, but we had never seen him in our lives.
When we got to our tent, we went inside and everything we had in there was tossed. Our bags were dumped out and our clothes were thrown everywhere. We quickly realized both our hunting knives were gone, along with a bunch of our clothes. We also realized it had to be that guy we saw, there were no other sites or hiking paths he could’ve been walking from besides ours.
We jumped in the car and drove back towards where we had seen him, he was gone. We drove a bit further and found a common area where other campers were gathered.
We sprinted down and asked ‘Have any of you seen this guy?’ and described him. The people at the gathering just stared at us and didn’t speak, giving us an even more creeped out feeling.
It was at that point that I told my friend, ‘We need to leave this place right now.’
Walking back to our car, we looked over the edge of a guardrail and saw all our stolen clothes in the woods. We gathered them up but didn’t find either of our knives. Knowing this guy was still out there with those knives and that no one around us cared freaked us out so much, we packed the car up and ended our camping trip early. No way were we staying out in those woods one more night!”
“My Adrenaline Instantly Shot Through The Roof”
“I was sitting in a park by my house at night with some friends when I got the sudden feeling to turn around. I saw a guy about 15-20 feet behind us with his hood on and hands in pocket walking quietly and with purpose towards us. I had been robbed at before, so my adrenaline instantly shot through the roof.
I stood up quickly and started moving away from him as I said ‘Let’s go NOW’ to my friends, who kind of protested and the guy stopped and said he just wanted to know the time.
I told him, ‘Nah forget that,’ and ‘Let’s GO’ once again to my friends.
We got out of there with the guy just kind of standing there from what I recall correctly, things get little hazy here because my adrenaline was really going, and I knew I needed to get out of there.
Could’ve been something, could’ve been nothing. Point is I’m still here. ALWAYS go with your gut feeling. Guys don’t just go creeping about like that when they JUST wanna know the time. Get outta here.”
Not Just A Kind Favor
“When I was 8 years old, my family went to India for my uncle’s wedding. But first we stopped in Mumbai to visit my dad’s side of the family. My cousin came to my grandmother’s house where we were staying. Since it had just stopped raining, we decided to play outside for a bit. While we were playing, the ball got stuck behind a heavy piece of stone (it’s beyond me why a giant heavy slab of stone was just outside the apartment building). My arm was not long enough to reach it, and I couldn’t go to the other side of it since it was riddled with broken bottles and dog poop.
Right as I was about to ask my cousin to try to reach it, a man called out to us. He then approached us and offered to get the ball out for us, which he did. Right after he got the ball out, this man asked us to wait there while he brought us some treats. That’s when the red light started flashing in my head.
I asked my cousin if he knew him, to which my cousin replied ‘No.’
I then told my cousin that we should go inside before he comes back. Thank god my cousin didn’t ask any questions. We got inside before the man came back. We watched from the window, to see if the man came back. He did, in fact, come back but with another man. If I hadn’t felt that something was off that day, I doubt my cousin and I would be here today. Since we were both small, defenseless little girls, I am almost certain we would have been kidnapped and trafficked.”
“My Entire Body Felt Ice Cold”
“I was coming back from a late night walk, it was almost midnight. I had left my apartment a couple hours earlier to clear my head, and I was feeling better so I decided to come back. It was pitch black outside (no moonlight) so I decided to cut through campus so I could walk by the streetlamps.
I had earbuds in blasting music, but I got this sudden sick feeling in my stomach, like it was twisting. My entire body felt ice cold, so I took out my earbuds, stopped walking, and looked around.
I was on the sidewalk, about 50 meters from the left turn to change streets. I looked to my right across the other side, and saw someone/thing just… roll down this hill out of the woods. They landed on the sidewalk parallel to me, stood up, and just stared.
You know what feeling when you get burned? That feeling shot through my entire body and before I knew it, I was sprinting toward the street to the left away from whatever that was.
I looked behind me once, and they were now on my side of the street, sprinting toward me. Their legs were running normally, but they were letting their arms flop around as they ran. It was the creepiest freaking thing I have ever seen in my life.
I tripped and fell, and heard the steps catching up. I rolled out of the fall and kept going, got to a parking lot and hid under a car. I waited, but I didn’t see anyone.
Scariest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Her Gut Feeling Saved More Than Just Her Life
“My husband, my 8-year-old daughter, my father-in-law, and I all lived together in this great little house that has been in my family for years. We had lived there for about five years at this point and every now and then, I would have this gut/paranoid feeling about a fire in/around the house. So much so, that I made my husband bring home several household fire extinguishers to place in the kitchen, laundry area, etc. It was an old farmhouse and I am prone to anxiety. So at the time, I just chalked up my ‘feelings’ to that. I even went around and checked the carbon monoxide/fire alarms in the house. Everything was fine.
Until one night. It was Sunday going into Monday morning. My husband was supposed to leave for an out of town meeting that night in order to be there bright and early Monday morning. It was just a little over an hour away but his company was paying for gas, food and a hotel room. This was our argument that night when I begged him to stay home just this one night and get up early and drive to the meeting. I claimed I missed him, and I did. But, more than anything, I just felt uneasy and have no idea, to this day, why I felt that way. I felt vulnerable and unsafe. He was my personal security blanket. I asked him to please stay the night at home. I am SO glad I did that.
I’ll preface this by saying, he had been having some back trouble so he took one of his muscle relaxers before bed and conked out. I stayed up an hour or so longer watching a movie in bed. I am a HEAVY sleeper, tornadoes, wind, and hail will not wake me. This night, however, I awoke suddenly to a dark room. I don’t know what woke me up. Everyone asks and I have NO answers. It was dark and I awoke in full panic, although it was quiet and in my room and everything seemed fine. I decided I needed to get up. I walked into the hallway and the only light on is the hall light…but we NEVER leave that on. The power was out, except for the hall light. The light is what made me realize the entire house except for my room in the back was thick with smoke and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
My house was on fire. I ran back into my room and shoved my sleeping husband off the bed yelling to get outside now. He says he only woke when he hit the floor. Thank you, medication.
Next, I dashed back down the hall and ran into my daughter’s room. I threw her over my shoulder whilst she was dead asleep and threw her blanket on top of her to keep the smoke off. I carried her outside barefoot in just my t-shirt and underwear. I sat her down and wrapped her in her blanket, then I realized my husband wasn’t behind me. I hollered for him to get outside now. Turns out he was trying to break down my father-in-law’s door. He should’ve been home and in bed as well. Finally, my husband came running outside screaming about his dad. I told him to throw me his phone so I could call 911. Then, I looked up at the driveway and noticed that my father-in-law’s truck was gone. He wasn’t home!! About five minutes after all three of us were out of the house, the roof caved in. Our room and my daughter’s bedroom were completely decimated. If I had stayed in bed any longer, we would’ve been goners. The kicker though, was the fire started from a shorted outlet in my father-in-law’s bedroom. I am so glad he decided he needed Waffle House breakfast in the middle of the night.”