While we may not all behave this way, we all know someone who does things "just in case," packs extra items for a trip just in case they're needed, and always has a backup plan in case the primary plan doesn't work out.
But sometimes being extra careful and even listening to our intuition can save a life.
Curious about others' experiences, Redditor cadouxmoring8 asked:
"What precautionary measure did you take, thinking 'just to be safe,' that unexpectedly ended up saving the day later on?"
Advocating for Patients
"Nurse here. Per usual, I was being overworked. I had over nine patients in the ER. One patient had cancer and hadn't been feeling well. The doctor insisted he was fine."
"However, just to be safe I continued to regularly check in on him as he was chilling in a chair in the hallway. He started complaining of feeling super tired and off."
"His daughter (who also was a doctor) kind of said something along the lines of, 'You've had a stressful day dad. We will get you home once the doctor discharges you.' Just to cover my a**, I took his vitals. His blood pressure was 70s/40s."
"I had a critical care room open and immediately rolled him in there, calling out to the doctor that something was wrong I could just feel it. The charge nurse got mad when I told her he needed that room (she didn't like that I was a travel nurse calling the shots, but I didn't care)."
"The doctor felt I was overreacting but they repeated vitals and did a Stat scan. The guy was bleeding internally (I can't remember full details now) and they found Mets to his spinal cord. We were able to stabilize and ship him to a bigger hospital."
"That irritated ER doctor thanked me later and said if that guy went home he most likely would have died that night. It felt really, really good. All because I listened to my patient and my gut, and didn't let the stress of over 9 patients cloud my judgment."
- nobasicnecessary
Changing Lives, One Lizard at a Time
"I run a reptile and exotic animal rescue in South Texas. We are having very cold weather."
"I drove out to the rescue to check on everyone ONE MORE TIME even though I'd been out there many times today."
"The heat had stopped working. We ended up having to move all the reptiles to my house. They would have died tonight."
"It's crowded as f**k but everyone is alive. The 90-pound tortoise in my living room is probably gonna messsome stuff up, but he's alive."
- LizardPossum
So Creepy
"I used to have a ground floor apartment and a motion sensor camera on my patio connected to my phone. My friends and I got home around 4:00 AM from being out all night, and we were chillin' in the living room. Motion was detected on the back patio. I dismissed it since it’s normally a stray cat or leaves blowing."
"A few minutes later, I decided to check out the motion recording just to see. It was a man that hopped over my patio fence and was peeking at us through the slits in the blinds. I went to live view to see if he was still there, and he was."
"I started going ballistic screaming and about to fight this guy. I was storming to my patio door but he fled by then. Glad I checked the camera."
- boobybread
A Very Useful Tip!
"This is a super mundane example but very useful to remember. Every time I'm in an airport, I take photos of my bags before checking them in."
"So this one time, they lost my bag and I was sitting at the help desk, and they said something like, 'Can you describe it? Does it have any identifying features?' and I was able to just bust out the photos. They found my bag very quickly."
"Shared this story with people at a conference, and now every year, they all tell me they take photos of their bags, and every now and then, it saves someone's a**."
"On a similar note, also taking photos of room numbers and building locations helps, too!"
- internetpillows
From Taking Steps to Saving Lives
"My job has a company-wide wellbeing program and each site has a representative. They offer challenges throughout the year, and staff are encouraged to compete with the other sites."
"We were losing a step challenge so I jokingly said to my building wellness representative that they needed to send out an email encouraging everyone to log their steps because I hate losing."
"They said, 'Actually, would you be interested in taking over this role? I don’t have time for it.' I awkwardly said sure because I’m a people pleaser. I found out that week that there were a TON of benefits that they hadn’t signed us up for. One of which was a mobile mammogram."
"So, I signed us up for that ASAP. The bus came and went. A week later, a person I had never seen came up and asked if [it was me], and I said yes. It turns out she was working in our building that day and say the mobile mammogram bus and decided to hop on and get checked."
"She discovered she had stage three breast cancer with zero symptoms."
"If that chain of events hadn’t happened: me commenting about losing the step challenge, my choosing to schedule the mammogram bus, her being on site that day, this woman, a wife and grandmother, would likely have died of breast cancer. Because of this chain of events, she had a double mastectomy and will live to see her grandchildren grow up."
- likelazarus
Yay for Good Car Insurance
"I randomly went with my friend to buy her new car; I just needed to get out of the house. I convinced her to buy GAP insurance because it was cheap and I wish I had gotten it for peace of mind. Her car got stolen, and instead of being stuck with the loan, the insurance paid out (after 30 days or whatever), and she got another car."
- Soggy-Art6998
Always Wear Your Seatbelt
"I was coming home from sledding when I was a wee six years old. Just me and my dad in the old Ford Explorer. Before we left the park, we had an argument about wearing my seatbelt (I think it was because I was bundled up and chunky and did not want the added sensory discomfort of being strapped into the passenger seat. Dad wins, and I wear the seatbelt."
"He forgot to put his on. About a mile from our humble farmhouse, he’s going decently slow because the roads are slick, we hit ice and spun out anyways. We run right into the tree line through a barbed wire fence, and smack into a tree head-on pretty hard. Because my dad was not wearing his seatbelt, he ended up on my side of the car, head smashed into the windshield, blood EVERYWHERE."
"Luckily, an older couple were driving down our relatively quiet country road and stopped to help. They drove my poor little traumatized self down the road to our house and took Dad to the ER. He was thankfully fine, he just needed stitches, maybe a mild concussion. I think my dad still had glass coming out from his scalp like five years after that, though."
"Glad he was a persistent, good father and made me put my seatbelt on."
- PenDouglas
The Power of Receipts
"I work from home. I take screenshots of what my managers say in Teams. One manager said one thing, and another tried to say it never happened. I produced the screenshot."
- Working_Park4342
A Moral Trap
"Not stopping: About 20 years ago, I almost stopped to help a stranded motorist, saw a highway patrol behind me, and knew he would stop."
"That night on the news, I saw that he did stop and a shootout ensued after the officer noticed the ignition wire had been pulled from the distributor. The 'stranded' motorist was an escaped prisoner looking for another car to steal."
- zantilley
A Preview of Living Off-Grid
"I bought a generator 15 years ago because a hurricane was forecast. I drove three hours to get it. We didn’t lose power that month. My hubby rolled his eyes."
"Two months later, the 'October' storm hit, dumped 20 inches of snow, the state lost power, and we lost power for 13 days. We had the wood stove and the generator, a well, some lights, stove, and fridge."
- lefty-boomer
Internet Backup
"I'm a manager of a small chain of retail stores. I set up a backup card processing system in case of an internet outage. Most of our customers prefer to pay in debit, and due to processing fees, we prefer to let them."
"In 2022, there was an epic internet outage. The debit was down across the country."
"But my backup solution worked. So, for one glorious day, Walmart wasn't able to accept debit, but my tiny chain was."
"My boss hadn't been sure about the amount of freedom he gave to me before that, but I got a lot of extra leash starting that day."
- 314159265358979326
In Need of Water
"Out of nowhere, I decided to boil a ton of water for my son’s formula. My husband made fun of me for boiling gallons of water to store in several giant pots but then he took over the project."
"The next day a freak winter storm hit Texas. We lost power for a week and water for a week and a half. Because we were still in survival mode we had zero clue this storm was coming. We didn’t have much food for ourselves. But our baby boy was well-fed during the storm."
"I did worry about running out of formula and trekking through snow, but thankfully, we had also bought cans of formula a few days before the storm on a whim."
- HunkyDorky1800
Jeepers Creepers
"I threw a flashlight in my pocket when going for a day hike. We got lost in mountain lion territory and took over an hour in the dark to get out once we found the trail again. And we could hear some animal near us the whole time hiking out in the dark."
"It scared the bejeepers out of me, but the flashlight made it infinitely better than it could have been."
- R888D888
Truly the Worst Could Have Happened
"My son was extremely colicky. He would only sleep ON me so we spent the first six months of his life sleeping on the chaise part of the couch."
"This one evening, we were laying on the area rug (it was super soft and plush), and he fell asleep. I was stoked!! I could sleep again in my bed!!"
"However, I just didn’t feel right leaving him there. I carefully moved him to his bed, and it took a while, but he eventually got back to sleep."
"The next morning, I was awakened by my dog barking at me. One thing to note: this dog NEVER barked in the house. If he wanted to wake me up, he’d jump into my bed and do it that way."
"When I got up to let him out, the carpet was soaked. I was p**sed because I thought the dog peed (he was housebroken) in my bedroom. Turns out, we had a pipe burst and the entire house had a minimum of two inches of water throughout."
"I shudder to think about what could have happened if I had left my son on the area rug. It’s something I had never done before and wouldn’t think was the acceptable thing to do, but I was so sleep-deprived."
- AdhesivenessVast3688
Necessary Upgrades
"When I remodeled the second-floor apartment I installed fire blocking to the balloon-framed walls. My dips**t brother-in-law started a grease fire in the downstairs kitchen while I was on vacation, and the fire was contained quickly. The fire inspector said that without the fire blocking the house would have been a smoldering hole in the ground."
- bloodshothike
While some of these are wonderful in the sense of how they worked out, others were incredibly chilling, considering what could have happened. I
t's always better to go the safer route, but sometimes, things like this happen and remind us that the effort is worth it.