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Someone In This Online Group Asked “What Is Not A Bullet You Dodged, But A Huge Tactical Nuke You Dodged?” And 30 Folks Delivered
No doubt each and every one of us has had a close call like no other. You know, a situation where if not for a certain sequence of events or actions, you’d been in deep trouble.
Redditors have been sharing these exact stories from their own lives, explaining how they not just dodged a bullet, but rather a “tactical nuke” considering the scope of things.
Reddit user u/NinjaNate123 asked the lovely community at r/AskReddit what is NOT a bullet you dodged, but a huge tactical nuke you dodged? Hours later, the post garnered over 54,000 upvotes with nearly 15,000 comments.
Bored Panda invites you to check out the stories redditors shared in the curated list below. And while you’re at it, why not vote and comment on the ones you enjoyed the most, or share your close calls in the comment section below!
More Info: Reddit
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#1
24 years old, had a pesky sore on my tongue that was really bothering me. My boyfriends dad was a dentist so when I was over at his house one night I asked him to take a look. He recommended I go see an oral surgeon the next day for him to check it out. The next day I decided it was feeling better so I tried to cancel my appt but my boyfriend’s dad insisted I go. I went, and the oral surgeon pretty much diagnosed it as cancer on the spot. It was aggressive and by the time of my surgery to remove it it had already spread to multiple lymph nodes. They ended up removing over half my tongue followed by chemo and radiation. Given how aggressive it was, I often think that if I had put off the doctors visit any longer I probably wouldn’t have survived. I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary in January
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#2
I used to own a gym with a partner. I sold my half of the company and took a boring but stable government job about 3 months before the pandemic.
#3
When I was 11 I started losing vision in my left eye, and eventually went completely blind in about 2-3 weeks. After lots of testing we found that I had a brain tumor in my left optic nerve that would likely spread quickly. They gave me a year and a half to live in the best case scenario with treatment. They got the eye surgically removed, started my on radiation and chemo, and luckily I responded well to it. Cancer's long gone, am now a cyclops, and happy to be disease free.
#4
I had just moved to Colorado by myself and for whatever reason my mom was encouraging me to get out of the apt and go see the new Batman movie. That was the night of the theater shooting, and not only was that the theater but it was also the showing I was considering going to. I stayed up late playing League of Legends instead and woke up to a LOT of texts and missed calls. Probably not ideal for my family's blood pressure that I slept in pretty late that day too.
#5
In UNI me and my 2 best friends were drinking, playing Mario kart and just shooting the s**t. We were hungry and wanted food. I said let's just make a tombstone pizza because we've been drinking and most delivery services were closed at 1:30AM. One said he's fine to drive, I said no no bad idea. He got the other guy to go with. McDonald's usually doesn't take 2 hours to get so eventually I went for a scooter ride since mcdonalds was less than 2 miles away. I notice there's a taped off spot on the bridge right before mcdonalds with a crane, cops and an ambulance. They curbed the car and drove it off the bridge and into the shallow creek top first and passed away on impact. I dodged the nuke of passing away but ate the bullet of survivors guilt for nearly 5 years.
1) I am doing good, depression and fear of driving lasted a pretty long time. Moving back home for 2 semesters helped a lot versus being alone in the college apartment we shared. 2) it's those old Razor scooters that you kick, not a moped or electric scooter. 3) I took the keys of the driver but he had a spare key and they left when I went to the bathroom. Got to the living room and they were gone, looked out the window and his car was gone. Verbally said f**k what an idiot, his dad is going to be livid if he gets pulled over.
Elizabeth Molloy 3 years ago
So sorry man. But he chose to go. Is ANYTHING worth risking your life (and someone else's) for?
#6
On a road trip in college with 4 friends. We stopped halfway for a pit stop because I had explosive diarrhea and was getting more sick by the minute. Friends carried on to Vegas and left me with one of the guys who rented us a car to return home.
The friends that carried on got into a roll over: 1 passed away, 2 will be injured for life.
Kevin Erdős–Bacon 3 years ago
This isn't something I say often, but pity all of you didn't get explosive diarrhea
#7
My wife and I were prepared to buy a nice riverfront property in 2019, but the owners (her dad and uncle) were dragging their feet. We had our down payment, we were approved for the mortgage, and we had even been living there paying rent.
Then the river rose 30ft/10m and we had to evacuate. The water kept rising. The house was destroyed before we bought it.
So we didn't buy it.
#8
Dated a woman who was physically and emotionally abusive. Got caught in the cycle of abuse, gaslighting, etc...not sure how I was going to leave, afraid to leave, etc. One day a neighbor witnessed one of her violent outbursts and called the police. She was arrested, charged with domestic violence/assault. I was granted a restraining order. Luckily my dilemma took care of itself. If it hadn't, who knows. A buddy of mine told me if I had stayed with her much longer I'd be deceased. He wasn't kidding.
Katie Lutesinger 3 years ago
Thank goodness the neighbour did the right thing instead of turning a blind eye!
#9
My manager was trying to have me fired for underperformance, and I was so depressed at the time that I believed I was an awful employee
The place I work has a whole song and dance routine just to get someone a verbal warning, let alone fired, so she tried to get me to take a severance payment so that I'd leave and save her the trouble. I had to take sick leave shortly after that conversation, and while I was gone, she initiated the formal process to have me fired. I was able to drag things out for a couple of months, and during that time, I discovered she'd falsified documents to make me look like a lost cause. Presenting a dossier to HR demonstrating her statements were provably misleading, and documenting every time she failed to follow proper procedures turned everything around. I got moved to a better job on a better team, and spent a solid year rubbing it in her face how well I was doing, and ensuring it got back to her whenever I got praise from the department head.
It was pretty annoying that she didn't get fired, but there would have been too much blowback on management if she had.
Still, I went from the verge of unemployment to unequivocal success
TheReader19 3 years ago
She should have got fired as she is a manipulative personality who could really damage someone's life
#10
When I was 16, I had a good friend whose father was a wealthy businessman of some kind. This is Chicago and I guess his dad started screwing around with the wrong guy’s woman. My friend told me it had something to do with the mob or a mobster’s wife. I never knew for sure, but do know that I saw firsthand his dad get threatened (at a tennis court of all places) by two well-dressed clearly-Italian men who drove up in a black Cadillac. I was sitting right there with his friend as they talked to him and it was exactly as I imagined it would be in the movies. My friend said there was a contract on his dad. He actually said it like it was cool, and at the time, I guess I thought it was too.
I was invited to go with them on a fishing trip in Lake Michigan that week (my friend, his dad, his dad’s friend, and I). Two days before the fishing trip, something happened with a member of my family and we had to go to Cincinnati for a few days.
When I returned, I learned my friend’s body was found floating in Lake Michigan (he was wearing a life vest). His father, his father’s friend, and the boat were never found. Police questioned me about what I knew and who I’d seen talking to his dad, but I think I was lucky that i said I couldn’t describe what they looked like and didn’t get wildly specific.
Either way, the coolest kid I knew, Chris, he passed away. And they never found his dad, the dad’s friend or the boat. It was a nice boat on a calm day on Lake Michigan. And something bad happened. Always felt I dodged getting caught up in something I wouldn’t have escaped from.
TheReader19 3 years ago
Now that's some crazy s**t; but it's really bad/sad that they murdered a child 😣
#11
Was chatting with a woman at the bar, nothing flirtatious just casual banter. I told her I needed to head out and she asked if I could give her a ride. I was headed that way so it wasn't a big deal. We pull into her driveway and I can see a guy at a computer in the living room through the window. I ask who it is and she replied "that's my husband, he's a pansy. I'll bring him outside and you scare him off, then we can have the house all to ourselves for the night" Every alarm bell in my head was ringing and all I could think was 'how do I get this crazy out of my truck without a big scene?' so I said "sounds good" as soon as she was half way to the door I put it gear and burned rubber
#12
I quit a job after my boss yelled at everybody for faking being sick when one guy came in with the flu and passed it around the office. He claimed that people don't get sick by being near each other. One guy got it so bad he was hospitalized for 2 weeks. I quit with no back up in October 2019. By February 2020, his company went out of business
#13
We went to Thailand in 2003 for Christmas (I spent a number of years there in the early 90s as a kid) and loved it so much that we were gonna do it again the next year. Spend Christmas watching the sun come up on a beach at Phuket again.
We had the tickets and everything, but because of some new fallout from an Enron-adjacent scandal, my dad wasn't allowed to leave the country (he wasnt implicated, but was in the c-suite of a credit card company, and all such people were under travel advisory).
Anyway, the very hotel we were gonna stay at got 100% rekt by the tsunami so I guess we got lucky
TheReader19 3 years ago
Even to this day I think about that tsunami hence the reason I never want to live near the sea
#14
I was moving abroad to do a post-grad degree. My flight was to leave out of Newark early morning on 9/11. A family friend who worked in the Towers kept prodding me to move my flight to the afternoon and come visit him in the office so he could show me around (my parents were pressuring me to go as well since it was a good networking opportunity).
I was on the fence, but decided not to since I was a poor student and didn't want to pay the cab fair from my hotel in NJ to lower Manhattan. Our friend made it out, thankfully, and I'm guessing I would have well, but no way would I want that experience burned in my memory.
Claire Stanfield 3 years ago
Yeah, there's no guarantee you would have made it just because your friend did. I'm glad you were able to steer clear.
#15
In school, was about 16, at a house party. Friend's older brother and a bunch of guy's friends show up, bust out some coke. I noped out. Just bad feelings, so called my mom and left. Party was busted. Some got jail time. Missed it by 15 minutes
Claire Stanfield 3 years ago
It is so important to tell your kids that they can call you for a ride no matter what and you'll come get them. Come up with a believable word or phrase that they can use in casual conversation with you. Tell them you'll be the bad guy, that they can lie to their friends about curfew or a bedtime if they feel uncomfortable in any situation. Too many kids get injured or killed every year because they didn't have an out.
#16
Not me but a family friend managed to avoid the Pulse shooting where they were having thier birthday party because they got had gotten a intense craving for McNuggets so he and his group went to McDonald's down the road. They left roughly 15-20 minutes before everything went down.
#17
I almost put spoiled cream in my coffee this morning.
It was touch and go for a while
#18
I was briefly engaged to a man who has since cheated on his gorgeous, intelligent, sweet wife hundreds of times. They are separated but have two children and will likely reconcile. I broke our engagement when he said that he thought it was perfectly ok for a man to cheat on his wife if they'd been married for awhile and "he'd gotten bored". Oddly enough, he didn't believe a woman was entitled to do the same.
I feel so badly for his poor wife now. He began cheating on her two years into their marriage when she was pregnant with their first child.
#19
There was an apartment I really wanted but at the last minute I found a slightly better one. The apartment I almost moved into burned to the ground a month later.
Gelato Cat 3 years ago
Don't get me wrong this is a great example of the butterfly effect but depending on what started the fire I feel like this is due more to the person living in the apartment not the actually appartement, buildings dont often burn down without some form of human involvement ( leaving the stove on ect)
#20
Back in college. Ex cheated and got preggo. Blamed it on me, involved her family and all.
I was willing to file a case in court with medicolegal as needed. Ex got too pressured as I was taljing to her dad about medical tests etc. Out of nowhere she admitted that I wasnt the father and it was some classmate she had a fling with.
Elizabeth Molloy 3 years ago
Stupid woman. DNA testing has been around for long enough now. Either keep it or abort; why try and rope you into it?
#21
I was dating this coworker who lied all the time. I told her from the beginning that I didn’t want to start anything if she wasnt serious and if there was someone else. She assured me no, and she had deep feelings for me.
One day out of the blue, a random girl stopped by our workplace and asked around for the girl I was dating. In a building filled with hundreds of people, I happened to be the only one at the front, and asked what’s going on. Turns out, this random person was pretty much there to start a fight. The girl I was dating was sending nudes to her boyfriend. Whoops.
If I had not been at the front, I would’ve never found out. One angry text later, I never heard from her again.
TheReader19 3 years ago
Really don't understand the mindset of such people; they obviously just like excitement
#22
We were in Italy on a school field trip. We decided to play "schweinehaufen", pig pile, dog pile? Anyways on person is declared the pig and everyone has to jump on them. We played this on a beach at night. Just sand, no danger, right?
Well, the last round we got up and realized we formed this pile next to a 1m metal pole sticking out of the ground. It was maybe ten centimetres away and could have easily impaled the first 3-4 people. We didn't play that game again.
TheReader19 3 years ago
I haven't even heard of this game, but it sounds a bit dangerous anyway
#23
I can answer this in a literal way. When I was a child, I was playing video games with my little brother. Well, he found our dad’s gun and fired it. No one was hurt but it scared the s**t out of me.
#24
My father in law: Was working on construction of a power plant and was scheduled work Sunday (was a union pipe fitter). Saturday he got a call from another company asking him to run a job much closer to his house, think 5 minute commute vs 50, so he accepted and didn't go to the power plant job Sunday.
That day there was an explosion at the plant and people in the crew passed away
Doing everything to avoid using the cliche "this blew up" given the context. To confirm because it was being asked a lot, yes this was the plant in Middletown, CT. This was a pretty significant event in the State of CT and made national news so I'm not shocked so many of you were able to identify exactly where it was. I'm sure my father in law wasn't the only one that didn't go in that day as it was also Super Bowl Sunday....
Jaguarundi 3 years ago (edited)
Yes, I lived in CT then, 2010, not very far from Middletown. Yes, I'm having flashbacks of that day too.
#25
I interviewed at a company in NH that made jams, baking mixes, lollipops, etc for a technical job.
The president, the owner’s daughter, spent most of the interview dumping on their current consultant and making fun of, of all things, his degrees. That initially turned me off.
Then, speaking with the owner, he makes it a point to take a call and tell the person on the other end, “I’ll pay you when I pay you!” Cash flow issues? His question about my education was: “What can your fancy degrees do for me?”
Then, when I met the VP of Marketing, she asks me how many recalls I’ve done. “Uh, none, that’s not what I do.” “Wait, what interview is this?”
I decline their offer.
Fast forward maybe five years. I’m talking to a guy about doing some consulting work for him and we get in the subject of this company. He had interviewed there as well. He also got the vibe and declined.
Turns out, they were planning on selling the company and were beefing it up for appearances. It also turns out, after the sale, that they had spent the previous months sending current clients to their next endeavor. They almost went to jail for their financial and business shenanigans.
Would not have been happy to get caught in that mess.
#26
The second floor of the house I was renting collapsed a month after I moved out.
ETA: apparently a water pipe sprung a leak shortly after we left. We weren't in any trouble.
Deutschland Mädchen 3 years ago
Woah that was a close call. Hope no one moved in after you left 😬
#27
Back in the 80s, a friend asked me to go on a motorcycle trip to Alaska with him. I declined. He had an accident on the way, skidded several hundred yards on his head, and now has a metal plate. I would've been on that bike with him.
#28
Almost wound up in the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis years ago. My uncle, cousin, and I were on our way to a Twins game. We were originally planning to take the route that crossed the bridge, but last minute decided to take a more "scenic" route. After it happened, we were talking and we figured it probably would have been within a couple minutes of the time the bridge collapsed that we would have been on the bridge.
#29
Few years ago I was in a small fender bender. Someone merged into my lane, with me in it, and smashed my driver side door and their passenger door together. I had pulled my arm in from having it hanging out the window about 15 seconds before that happened. Would have most likely had my arm ripped off.
Elizabeth Molloy 3 years ago
You must be quite young; most people my age (51) have seem the Oliver Stone-Michael Caine film, The Hand, in which that exact scenario ends with Caine's character losing his hand which crawls back to haunt him. Gave me, and my now-husband, nightmares after seeing it on TV in the 80s!
#30
I was asked to have a marriage of convenience to help someone get a greencard. I saw a few friends involved in that community all have horrible issues and tons of stress. I don't need that s**t
What do you think ?
littlesaresare 3 years ago
When I was young and lived near the beach, we had a season of king tides, which were so severe that they'd eroded the beach into a cliff, with a ~1m sort of path left of beach in front of the fences (the fences backing onto the road). My brother took me there to walk along this cliff in front of the fences. I was really nervous and kept asking if we could go back up onto the road. He mocked me a lot and called me a crybaby, etc. Eventually I was too scared to continue and climbed over the fence anyway, and back up onto the road. He had to follow. Not three seconds later, a wave came and destroyed that remaining 1m of beach, pulling down the fence with it down the cliff and into the water. If we had continued even 5 seconds longer we would've been dead.
AK to LV 3 years ago
Did your brother ever admit that you saved his life?
Load More Replies...
Enuya 3 years ago (edited)
In 2016 me and my boyfriend wanted to vist a Christmas Market in Berlin. It would be quite an experience because we live in Poland, far away from that city. But his family lives near Berlin anyway, so we decided: "Why not?" Two days before we had to depart, boyfried's grandma went seriously ill and we stayed to take care of her (as his parents were away from home). And, hell, EXACTLY on a day we would visit the Market, December 19th 2016 there was an terrorist attack. By the way, Grandma recovered, eventually. Both me and my boyfriend are agnostics but up to this day we sort of believe there was a higher force takin' care of us on that day.
Fiona Parky 3 years ago
My great uncle and great aunt were travelling back from a lovely holiday to catch their ferry home across the channel. My great uncle was a bit fernicketty about his meal times and insisted on stopping for a proper lunch. That made them late and they missed their ferry. The ferry was The Herald of Free Enterprise. It was March 6th 1987
littlesaresare 3 years ago
When I was young and lived near the beach, we had a season of king tides, which were so severe that they'd eroded the beach into a cliff, with a ~1m sort of path left of beach in front of the fences (the fences backing onto the road). My brother took me there to walk along this cliff in front of the fences. I was really nervous and kept asking if we could go back up onto the road. He mocked me a lot and called me a crybaby, etc. Eventually I was too scared to continue and climbed over the fence anyway, and back up onto the road. He had to follow. Not three seconds later, a wave came and destroyed that remaining 1m of beach, pulling down the fence with it down the cliff and into the water. If we had continued even 5 seconds longer we would've been dead.
AK to LV 3 years ago
Did your brother ever admit that you saved his life?
Load More Replies... Enuya 3 years ago (edited)
In 2016 me and my boyfriend wanted to vist a Christmas Market in Berlin. It would be quite an experience because we live in Poland, far away from that city. But his family lives near Berlin anyway, so we decided: "Why not?" Two days before we had to depart, boyfried's grandma went seriously ill and we stayed to take care of her (as his parents were away from home). And, hell, EXACTLY on a day we would visit the Market, December 19th 2016 there was an terrorist attack. By the way, Grandma recovered, eventually. Both me and my boyfriend are agnostics but up to this day we sort of believe there was a higher force takin' care of us on that day.
Fiona Parky 3 years ago
My great uncle and great aunt were travelling back from a lovely holiday to catch their ferry home across the channel. My great uncle was a bit fernicketty about his meal times and insisted on stopping for a proper lunch. That made them late and they missed their ferry. The ferry was The Herald of Free Enterprise. It was March 6th 1987
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