15 people share things they did 'just to be safe' that ended up saving them later.

Life is full of potential dangers, and many of us don't realize how many we accidentally dodge on the regular.

A speeding car, a loose stair, a shady person looking to take advantage of us, these are all stressors that can go from 0-100 real quick. Taking precautions 'just in case' can feel dramatic at times, but it's always better safe than sorry. And you'll never regret it during that rare time a precaution saves the day.

In a popular Ask Reddit post, people shared times they did something 'just to be safe' and it ended up saving them.

1. From Jaboogaman:

$5 breakage insurance on a rental surf board. Broke that f**ker clean in half in my first 10 minutes.

2. From Ok-Ad-2605:

Had some weird achy symptoms and went to the doctor even though I figured I was probably overreacting. Turns out I had cancer.

3. From TheKr1tster:

I was getting ready for school whilst mum was vomiting in the bathroom. She said it was just a stomach bug and to just go to school but mentioned her arm hurt. Something didn’t sit right so I called the ambulance from downstairs. They arrived and took her into the ambulance - she then proceeded to have 3 cardiac arrests and needed defibrillated each time.

A double bypass later and she was up and about within a month. Paramedics told me she would have died 5 mins after I left, if I hadn’t called.

4. From nuclearlady:

I had a female patient coming for I131 therapy. Patient must be not pregnant and to make sure we do a blood test one day prior to dosing. I checked the results on screen that was negative. I printed it out and put it in the patient file “ just in case “ although we went paperless years earlier. After giving her radiation safety instructions and discharging her.

She came a couple of days saying that she was late. The doctor inserted another pregnancy blood test and came out positive. The lab technician went to the previous negative blood test and CHANGED IT TO POSITIVE. Haven’t I printed the test it would look like I dosed the patient while pregnant and could get fired.

Staff before this incident used to make fun of me being paranoid. After this incident everyone started printing the results 😂.

5. From gooodwoman:

My mom and I were home alone and I was getting ready to go to a party. I came upstairs and found her with the carbon monoxide detector in pieces on the coffee table. She said it was beeping, and apparently once years ago in our last house one was malfunctioning and giving a false alarm so I guess she just assumed it was happening again.

I shrugged it off and continued getting ready. I was about to leave but something was nagging at me, she was insisting it was fine. After some arguing with her I said “No. we are calling the fire department.” So I did. They came, and the levels of carbon monoxide were so high in the basement they said anyone sleeping down there would be dead already.

Our cats were vomiting from the poisoning and we didn’t realize. I guess the filter on the furnace was so clogged it was pumping out carbon monoxide. One of the firefighters pulled me aside and said if I hadn’t called I likely would have come home to my mom dead in her bed.

6. From windexfresh:

I was watching my toddler nephew and he’d found a metal straw somewhere in the house and started playing with it. He was just tapping stuff and waving it around, but I’d just read a story on Reddit about a woman who got completely f**ked up by a metal straw when she fell and it impaled her face, so I took the metal one from nephew and gave him a soft, squishy silicone one to play with instead.

I’m not exaggerating when I say less than five minutes later, he fell like toddlers do and I saw the silicone straw all smushed into his cheek. I had to just sit for a while after that, lol.

7. From ijustwanttogotojacuz:

Lived in Baltimore at the time. Pulled up outside my place after getting off a late shift and had to get a backpack out of my trunk before going in. I noticed a group of teenaged kids hanging out on the corner and thought 'nope'. Called my roommate to come watch me walk to the door.

About 10 mins later a girl comes running down the street bleeding saying she got jumped by the group of kids for no reason. Stay alert out there yall.

8. From Kingkongcrapper:

Snow chains at the bottom of the mountain. A bunch of cars passed me on a clear road on the way up with several warnings all the way up. I saw a local throwing on chains with no snow in the area. I decided to be safe and put them on. 30 minutes later I was in one of the worst snow-driving conditions I’ve ever seen.

Whiteout conditions in a snowstorm that eventually resulted in the complete shutdown of the roads. I passed car crash after car crash with just enough traction to feel somewhat comfortable moving 15 miles an hour. Anyone heading to Tahoe needs chains and chains that fit.

Don’t f**k around. I don’t care if you have a four-wheel drive. Driving through Tahoe and Mammoth during snow storms is no joke. Literally sunny with no clouds to blinding white darkness in an hour.

9. From dimlightupstairs:

Normally I'm pretty impressionable and cave to peer pressure, but this one time when I was younger I was hanging with my friends and a couple of 'older' high school guys I'd only met that day. The girls were all fawning over them but I could tell they were idiots. When they all wanted to go for a drive with the guys, I thought 'nah, I don't trust these guys and I think it's best I just call my parents and go home'.

I got a call the next morning from one of the girls who was a passenger. One of the high school boys was driving, they'd had a serious crash and one of the girls wasn't wearing her seatbelt and hit her head on the dash and was in a coma for six months. She was in intensive care and rehabilitation for years.

Still can't believe of all the days I decided not to go with the flow, it probably saved my life. Terribly sad about my friend. We were really close but she never came 'right' and her personality changed. I still wonder how successful she might have been and if we'd still be friends if that hadn't happened to her. Really sad.

10. From rangacurls:

Putting only one of my work shoes in the hotel safe along with my valuables. Literally has stopped me in my tracks from forgetting my wallet and passport in a different country.

11. From ReactionClear4923:

On a road trip with our (my siblings and I) dad in Latin America (he lived there and we were visiting). On a highway at night, with clouds, no moon, and no lights (this was a new highway that nobody likes taking now, as criminals often leave glass or spikes to puncture tires and rob you, or worse).

We were driving and this guy was pulled over and waving for help. My dad stopped behind and the guy was scared and asked if we could light up his car while he changed a flat tire (he was terrified of being out where alone and rightfully so).

Dad goes to get out to help and my sister grabbed him and said she didn't think this felt right. Dad assured us it was fine and almost got out, but sister grabbed him again. Right then a car flew by the door right where he would have been. 4 guys jump out, one grabs the man puts a gun to his head and the others sprint to our car.

There was a brief chase down the highway, but luckily their old Corolla didn't keep up with our jeep, and they gave up after 2-3 mins of driving 170km/h. My sister saved my dad's life (and probably ours) by making him stay in the car that extra few seconds.

Edit: The guy with a gun to his head lived and was 'okay' given everything. After the chase, we had to turn around and continue on the way we were originally going, as there were no other routes to get back home (unless we backtracked 6 hours). After we passed the vehicle of the man, we saw he wasn't there anymore and we thought the worst.

Luckily we ended up passing 4 national guard vehicles about 2 km later and saw that the man was with them talking to them. To answer, I've never known if the guy was in on it. The timing has always seemed off to me, however the look of fear in his face was so genuine when the guys jumped out that I can remember it perfectly 15 years later.

12. From tjohnboy:

I was delivering pizza in a sketchy block of town late at night. Huge apartment complex with multiple buildings. Walking up to the front door I noticed a couple of guys wearing dark clothing about 100ft behind me walking in my direction. Delivery was on the second floor and by the time I reached her door, I heard the main door of the apartment complex open and close.

She used a CC for the order and tipped in cash so when I was putting the receipt into my bag (where I kept my cash) I actually pulled the rest of the cash out and stuffed it into my inner jacket pocket just to be safe leaving just the change I had that night in the bag.

Started to head down the stairs back out to my car and two guys jumped out from behind the stairs and the one had a gun pointed at me and told me to give them the money. I quickly handed them my bag filled with quarters and they took off towards the back entrance of the apartment complex.

I never ran so fast in my life back to my car. I wanted to make sure I was as far away as possible before they realized the robbed me of $3.50 in quarters.

13. From Fat_Ryan_Gosling:

I dropped my high school girlfriend off, then for some reason I locked the passenger door. Not 10 minutes later I was stopped at a red light and some scummy looking dude tried to open up the door. I have no idea why I locked that door after she got out, I really didn't have a habit of that. No idea what would have happened if that guy got in my truck.

14. From Casper771:

When I was a student I’d do my own work on my car to save mechanic bills. One day, after changing brake pads, I was driving on the motorway at 100kmh (the freeway at 60mph for our American friends) and felt a slight shuddering through the steering wheel. Given you’re not supposed to stop on a motorway unless it’s a real emergency, I was reluctant to pull over to check if anything was wrong.

Though having only worked on the car that morning, I decided I check - just to be safe. Turns out I hadn’t even finger-tightened the wheel nuts, only threaded them about a half-turn each.

15. From FunkyKong147:

I didn't wanna wear a helmet while riding my razor scooter because I couldn't see how I could possibly fall and hit my head. Anyway, I fell and hit my head HARD. luckily I had decided to wear a helmet just in case.