Every now and then a Reddit thread (a “threaddit,” if you will) pulls me in for hours of enraptured reading. These are usually threads about big events in a person’s life or weird things that have happened to them, that sort of thing. This thread, wherein user Legitimateshift8 asks “What’s the biggest bullet you ever dodged?” definitely fits the bill. There are beautiful stories, creepy stories, and plenty of life and death stories. With all that in mind… Let’s. Dive. In.

1. Sneaky Pneumonia

   A few years ago I had pneumonia, but my whole family insisted that it was just post nasal drip, (Which runs in the family) after a week or two I woke up in the middle of the night when I couldn’t feel my arm. After I got to the ER the doctor said that it was the worst he’d ever seen and he was surprised I wasn’t dead.I had 3 lbs of mucus cut out of my lungs and another two weeks in the hospital siphoning out the rest. For three months afterwards I could barely walk half a mile without starting to pass out and I still can’t run for more than 200-300 yards without collapsing. -Deadthrow742

   And just like that, all of my obsessive Web-MD use is justified.

2. You Done Trucked Up

   My dad was a truck driver in the oilfield in Canada. He worked a lot of long hours and every single day. So on weekends he would bring me and my younger brother on some of his jobs. We were on location and my little brother (3 yrs) and me (10 yrs) were waiting for him playing in cab of truck. My little brother opened the passenger door and my little arms closed it. Jobs done, we start our trek home going about 35 km/hr and the door flies open and I get sucked out of truck. I remember doing about 10 back flips as I tumbled out. Hitting the ground on my back a few times and rolling my way to a stop. I stood up before the truck was even stopped in absolute shock. Next thing I see my dad looking for me and he burst into tears. First time I ever seen him cry. I’m 33 now and he still won’t talk to me about it. Luckily the rig was in a farmers field. So when we were leaving I landed on softer dirt. Not a single scratch on me. Dad thought he ran over me with trailer. Don’t think we ever went to work with dad again. I work for the company now. -Paydayson

   I wouldn’t want to talk about it, either!

3. A Flight to Remember

   Many years ago, my flight had just landed at Chicago O’hare and the plane was taxiing when the pilot suddenly slammed on the brakes. People were literally thrown forward against the seat in front of them. A few seconds later, another plane (taking off I think) went screaming by right in front of us.No explanation was given, though our imaginations provided a lot of gory details. -khendron

   This is maybe my worst nightmare.

4. Live Wire!

   As a kid, after running errands in town with my mom, I was climbing into the backseat of our family station wagon. A semi-truck hit a power line pole down the street causing the still-live wire to fall, bounce off the roof of the car and hang across the open door just a foot or two above my legs.Raised catholic, I wondered for a while after if I had actually died that day and that the rest of what I thought was my life was my purgatory. -alex_harold

   I bet this person is GREAT at limbo. No? Too soon?

5. Good Job! Literally.

   I changed jobs March 9, 2020. Two days later my city shut down and everyone was sent to work from home. My new company committed to zero covid layoffs, the company I left, laid off about 80% of my department. Dodged a bullet haha. -Nice-excitement888

   What a huge difference this must have made in their life!

6. She Said “No”

   after i had a stroke, i was in a coma and it didn’t look like i’d wake up. the drs asked my wife if they should let me go. i only exist because she said no. i didn’t dodge a bullet so much as my wife blocked it for me.

   This is an incredibly touching story… and maybe a new first-date litmus test? What do you mean I’m “intense”?!

7. (Almost) Kill Bill

   There was a pile of stuff that people would leave at our house when I was at university, coats and stuff. Moving out day and we found a random samurai sword in the pile. We were messing about with it trying to make it go “swoosh”. I was stood facing my brother while he was swooshing it when the blade dislodged from the handle, flew straight past me and stuck horizontally into my headboard. So yeah my brother nearly impaled me while messing around with a random sword we found after a house party. -baeuti

   Imagine it hadn’t missed! “You see, your honor, we just wanted it to go SWOOSH.”

8. The Bomb Dot Com

   When my great aunt passed away I was helping to clean out her house. I’m just dragging everything out of the basement and suddenly my dad is like, “Whoa! Put that down gently and let’s move away from here.” So I put the weird metal tube-type thing I’m carrying down and get out of there. Turns out it’s a mortar shell from when my aunt worked in a munitions factor during WWII. Bomb squad came and took it away. -well_uh_yeah

   Most people just steal pens and rubberbands from work… but you do you, great auntie.

9. Til Death Do They Part

   My high school sweetheart ended up marrying the girl he dated after me. He was the murderer in their murder-suicide several years later. I don’t necessarily feel like “that could’ve been me,” but I do wonder how different our lives would’ve been if I’d stayed with him. This was years ago but I’m still very sad for him that he felt whatever led him to do this. -jianantonic

   Bullet dodged and an amazingly empathetic attitude retained.

10. A True Test of Luck

    Freshman year of college I had a calc class. It was material I had learned before, but for various reasons they didn’t give me transfer credit. So I skipped class quite frequently.Though I usually slept in, one morning I find myself awake at 8:30 and not really feeling like sleep. Might as well check in on the class and see what’s going on. It was the midterm exam. -mlahut

    Interestingly enough, college calculus is the biggest bullet I ever dodged.

11. Hats Off to You

    When I was in middle school I wanted to buy a fedora, but none could fit my head. -Axeman1721

    Y I K E S.

    That was a close one.

12. Bringing a Door to a Knife Fight

    Getting chased by someone with a knife across my apartment. I closed my door at the right moment so that person ended up stabbing my wooden door instead. The mark was there until I left the apartment a few years later as a constant reminder of what could have been. -peachcookieastrid

    I have… SO many questions.

13. Dropped Dead(ish)

    I had a cardic arrest about four years ago. Dropped dead(ish) in the middle of my shift. Found out after I woke up about a week later that:A) the manager who saw me fall was a former life guard and knew proper CPR B) an ambulance happened to be passing about two blocks away C) probably the best cardio unit in my state was a ten minute ambulance ride from where it all happened. Walked out of the hospital about two weeks later, full recovery. -Emperorhans

    If there’s ever a right place or right time to have a heart problem, this person found it.

14. The Cycle of Life

    Back in middle school, my friend and I would ride our bikes home everyday. One day, he was being a jerk, so I left without him. Turns out, he got hit by a car. Luckily, the car barely clipped his bike, so he got away with a broken leg. If I was there, I would have been riding behind him, taking the full force of the car. -Drogger4

    Looks like for ONCE it pays to be moody.

15. Nothing to Sneeze At

    I sneezed and cancelled my plans to go on a bus trip while backpacking. The bus went off a cliff killing almost everyone. Life got pretty dark and hard to handle after that.I am alive today, i have kids today, because of a sneeze. -Ratathosk

    I’m not entirely sure why one would cancel a bus trip because of a single sneeze, but I’m glad they did!