36 "One In A Million" Stories That May Sound Fake, But Are Actually Totally True
Reddit user u/yankeevandal posed the question: "What statistically improbable thing happened to you?" The thread promptly filled with hundreds of chilling, shocking, and fascinating stories of brushes with death, eerie coincidences, and unfortunate mishaps. BuzzFeed Community users also chimed in with their own one-in-a-million stories. Here are some of the most interesting anecdotes:
1."I was 8-months pregnant and putting my mother's ashes to sea. My mom had died a couple years prior on her 60th birthday, but my grandmother hadn't been ready to say goodbye then. My grandma was concerned about me being on the boat, but I insisted I'd be fine. As I dropped her ashes into the water, my own water broke. The captain rushed us back to land. My daughter was born the same day and hour as my mother had been over 60 years prior. We named her after her."
2."I got my tonsils out twice because they grew back. Let me tell you: Throwing up blood that runs down the back of your throat after surgery was an exorcist-level event. I’m glad the pain pills were so huge that I had to break them up into smaller, jagged bits..."
3."My sister's husband was taking classes at a community college in their city. He met a girl in his class who told him she was from the same small town where he and my sister (along with my parents) used to live. They talked some more, and he learned that her mom and stepfather worked at the same prison as our dad. He mentioned my dad’s name to her, and she said, 'That’s weird. That’s my stepdad’s name.' That's how we learned about my dad’s affair and his other family."
4."My husband and I visited our old hometown and went to a used bookstore we used to frequent. I picked up a familiar title in nostalgia and flipped it open to find a student’s school ID card. The name and photo on the ID? My husband's. Turns out his mom had donated books to that store many years before we all moved away from that area. He must have been using it as a bookmark and forgotten. It’s not so surprising considering we used to live in that area, but the ID was nearly 10 years old by the time we found it. That book was sitting on the shelf for nearly a decade, untouched, waiting for me to come along and pick it up. Bizarre."
5."My son died at 11 months old for two and a half minutes. I got to hold him as he took his first breaths, hold him while he took his 'last' breaths, and then got to hold him as he took his first breaths again. It’s something that, as a mother, I don’t wish on anyone. It was by far the scariest night of my life. I’ll never forget it: New Year's Eve 2007 in Fairbanks, Alaska. My son statistically was not supposed to survive the pregnancy. I nearly lost him three times in the first trimester. I started going into active labor at 20 weeks, got put on strict bed rest, and then developed preeclampsia. I also had Hyperemesis through the whole pregnancy. I couldn’t even hold down water and needed daily IV fluid and nutrition. I was 17 pounds lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight when I delivered him at 39 weeks. Because of all of that, he shouldn’t be here now."
"To make things even weirder, the doctor who kept me from losing him in my pregnancy was the doctor who treated him in Alaska — at a completely different hospital, all the way across the country from where we first met. It felt like divine intervention seeing his face. I knew, deep in my soul, that my son was going to be okay. My son is a happy, healthy teenager now. I am sitting here crying thinking about that night. It definitely still feels like a gut punch when I think about it."
6."I was hit by lightning...sort of. Indirectly. Lightning hit a tree near the wellhead while I was doing dishes. It exploded the tree, fried the well, and gave me a jolt that made my metal fillings so hot, they burned my tongue. Other than that, I was fine."
7."I was almost murdered in a case of mistaken identity. A guy came chasing after my car on the highway, waving his gun out the window. He eventually got in front of me, blocked my car, and stopped his car and got out. He came right up to my window, pointed the gun right at my head, looked me in the eyes, and said, 'Sorry, wrong chick,' then got back in his car and drove away. I still have no idea who he was or who the 'right chick' was."
8."Earlier this summer, I was walking in the woods with my dog, a 5-year-old, 65-pound pit/lab mix. We were on one of our usual trails, and at a narrow part of it. My dog randomly stopped, stared, and laid down. About 30 feet in front of us was a lone deer blocking the path. It just stood there staring at us for about 30 seconds. I decided to let it take its time; I was in no rush. Eventually, the lone deer ran back into the brush, and my dog and I continued on our path. When we got to where the deer was, a MASSIVE branch fell 30 feet in front of us — where we WOULD HAVE BEEN if we hadn’t stopped to wait for the deer. Once I realized that, I was so shook, and we went back the other way. I’m not a superstitious or 'everything happens for a reason' person, but when I told my mom about it, she said it was the deer 'paying it forward' because I work with animals (vet nurse)."
"If I was hit, I think I’d at least be dealing with some nasty hospital bills, and if my dog were hit, I hate to think about what could've happened. The whole thing broke my brain and made me feel really lucky."
9."I was contacted by the FBI in regards to a criminal on the most wanted list. There were so many coincidences in our lives that the agents thought that I had to know where he was. They grilled me for a couple of hours trying to get information, but I had never heard of the guy. It was incredible since our lives seemed so connected. We lived two streets apart as kids, attended the same elementary, middle, and high schools, and were members of the same church. He was three years older than me, so we never met at school, and his family attended church during a different time slot. We both studied French at the same university. As language tutors, we worked in the same office and had the same boss and general phone number. The age difference kept us from ever meeting, and he switched from French to business before I got there."
"We both did a church missionary service in the same part of France, and even lived at the same address twice. Our time in France never overlapped, and those mission apartments changed tenants every couple of months. When we both lived in Salt Lake, we lived in the same (large) apartment complex. He robbed an armored car outside of a movie theater on a Monday morning, getting away with a lot of cash and murdering the driver. I was working the overnight shift at a grocery store (from Sunday night to Monday morning) on that exact morning. The theater and the grocery store shared a parking lot. Every six months or so, the FBI checks in with me."
10."When I was a teenager, I picked up a hitchhiker, and then a few years later, the same guy picked me up when I was walking after I ran out of gas. Never saw him before or after those two occasions."
11."I survived two attempted kidnappings between the ages of 2 and 5. I don’t remember the first, but I remember the second time vividly."
12."I was driving with the windows down, and my friend was riding shotgun telling me about his friend, nicknamed Bird, whose death anniversary it was. We stopped at a red light and a feather flew into the car and landed on his arm. His arm has a feather tattoo in honor of his friend."
13."While riding my bicycle on a commercial fishing pier as a kid, I lost control and rode off the edge with a 20-foot drop to exposed rocks at low tide. I tried to stop myself going over by planting my feet on the edge of the pier, but I knew my bike was too heavy. Somehow, the bike stopped halfway over at a 45-degree angle. However, the seat was in the small of my back, preventing me from getting off. I couldn't budge it at all to get the bike back up. A fisherman finally ran over to help me, and we decided he would pull me as hard as he could, and I'd let the bike fall."
"I jumped to the side as he pulled me back to the pier, and it worked. However, my bike remained there, not moving at all. When I examined what had happened, there was a piece of rebar sticking out from the edge of the pier bent upwards in an L-shape, and it passed diagonally through the spokes of my front tire and completely wedged my bike in place. It was the ONLY spot on the 300-foot-long pier with ANYTHING sticking out. I most certainly did not stop myself and my bike from going over."
14."I found a dropped phone, tried my birthday as the passcode, and it unlocked."
15."When I was 16, I was driving with two of my friends on a back road. It had just started raining, which reminded us to put on our seat belts. About one minute later, the SUV hydroplaned and slid off the shoulder of the road. Being an inexperienced driver, I over-corrected, and the vehicle did a 180° in the road, then flipped over the other side and rolled three times. We landed upside down, all hanging from our seatbelts. One of my friends (who had watched too many action movies) started screaming that the car was going to explode, so we all tried to get out as quickly as possible. I remember hooking my feet on the steering wheel to get to unlatch the belt. We all slid out of our broken windows and ran back."
"Thankfully, another vehicle was driving behind us and saw the whole thing. He called 911, then told us what he saw. He thought we were all dead, and we should have been! It was miraculous to survive the accident, but here’s all the 'one-in-a-million' stuff: Turns out the car flipped right between a light pole and a huge tree, only missing both by a few feet. One of my friends was missing her cell phone, which was in her hand before the accident. We found it perfectly placed in her open purse, sitting upright beside the tree. EMS arrived and checked us out at the scene. We declined going to the hospital. Police officers claimed we were lucky to be alive. Seatbelts certainly played a role in saving our lives, but the roof was completely caved in and could have killed us all, with or without seatbelts.
The next day, we went to the tow truck yard to check out the car. Turns out my mom had left a box of roofing nails in the back that she was supposed to tell me to give to my stepdad, but of course forgot. They were scattered throughout the car, mostly nailed into the ceiling that had caved in. So, not only did we survive the accident mostly unscathed, we also had avoided nail shrapnel during it."
16."I was hit in a crosswalk two times as a pedestrian by the same person. The incidents were four years apart and in different states."
17."I received my heart transplant after being on the list for only seven hours."
18."A traffic light fell off of its cable and directly in front of my car while I was stopped at the red light."
19."A bird crapped in my mouth. I had the car door barely open while my boyfriend pumped gas and was mid-sentence when a bird flew under the awning and pooped at the perfect angle to go through the barely open door, right into my mouth. Gross."
20."I was driving to a friend's house when a huge tree fell on the road. My car passed under it as it was falling, so as soon as I could pull over, I called the emergency services and messaged my friend to say I would be late. When I got to his house, I found that his girlfriend's mum was in the car behind, and the tree fell on her car. Luckily, she only had minor injuries, but one tree almost took us both out."
21."After losing an AirPod while skiing, I was able to find it the next run."
22."I go to the same dentist with a woman who has the same first, middle, and last name, and same birth month and day as me. We’ve never crossed paths, but the hygienist tells me we both make them double-check the birth year every time we come in."
23."We moved out of our family home that my parents had lived in for about 25 years. We’d already moved out, and the new owners had moved in, but about a week later, my mum remembered that she’d left some old photo albums in the attic. She went back to collect them, and when we were looking through them, she realized that a young boy in a few photos of family friends was actually the new owner of our old home. I still find it funny that before moving any of his possessions into his new home, there were already photographs of this man as a child in his house."
24."I got left a written message to call a girl, and I mistakenly called another girl with the same name instead. We've been married for 14 years."
25."My wife and I were on a long cross-county road trip killing time in the car by listening to comedy albums. We finished listening to a Jim Gaffigan special as we were pulling into a rest stop off of 80 in Ohio. Who do I see coming out of the bathroom at the rest stop?? Jim freakin' Gaffigan. I lived in NYC for 20 years and never ran into him, saw him perform, or knew his material, but now, I was seeing him at some random rest stop after listening to him for an hour?! For the first time in my life, I thought that we were living in a simulation, and something glitched. It was like we conjured his presence or something."
26."I was on a train that derailed."
27."I saw an ad on a Pepsi case at a grocery store for a text-to-win contest to see Beyoncé in concert. I figured why not, so I sent a text and was entered. A few weeks later, I got a text back from the same number that told me I won the grand prize! I ended up winning two tickets to Beyoncé’s Mrs. Carter Show world tour in Brooklyn and $500 on a Visa gift card. I used the $500 for some bus tickets and a hotel down the street from Barclays. The seats were awesome, and it's something I’ll never forget!"
28."Lost a small (real) pearl earring in the snow down the street from my boyfriend-at-the-time’s house. I was adjusting a scarf, and it flung out of my ear. I was sad because my grandmother got them for me. The next spring, my boyfriend-at-the-time flicked a joint into the woods and was paranoid it didn’t go out all the way. He went to go step on it, and right next to his foot was the earring."
29."In 2006, I bought a travel guide to Costa Rica from a used bookstore to prepare for an upcoming trip. Inside the book was a copy of a shipping receipt from someone who'd ordered the book online a few years earlier. I did a double-take when I saw the shipping address on the receipt. The previous owner of the book had lived not only at my address, but IN MY SPECIFIC APARTMENT. And, presumably also took a vacation to Costa Rica, because that's usually why people buy travel guides."
30."I got attacked by a robin in the morning, then attacked by a hawk three hours later. Weird day."
31."About 10 years ago, I was in Baltimore for the large east coast earthquake that resulted in damage to the Washington Monument. It was major news because the east coast rarely has earthquakes, let alone ones large enough to cause a commotion. That day, I was packing bags to take a trip back west to the Bay Area. When I landed and got back to my parents' house at about 11:30 p.m., we were sitting, having a glass of wine, and chatting when we felt a magnitude 3 to 4 earthquake hit. Normal for the Bay. I may be one of the few people ever to experience an earthquake on two different US coasts on the same day."
32."My sister passed away in 2019, and a bunch of us went on a float trip about a year later. It was our first trip without her, so I brought a koozie that had her name on it to have a piece of her there with us. We got caught up in some branches soon after our trip started, and I lost the koozie. I was bummed. Not long after, we stopped on a beach, and my sister's daughter and I were hanging out in the middle of the river. All of a sudden, the koozie brushed my hand! It was down in the water, not floating at the top, and the water was moving so fast, the koozie should have been much farther down the river by that point. Of course, I started screaming in celebration that I found it. Still blows my mind that I found it, and there's no other explanation other than my sister made it happen!"
33."I once got into a car accident while driving home from work. I hydroplaned and got pitched off the road. My car ended up flipping over entirely, and I ended up upside-down. My airbags didn't deploy, and my car was completely totaled, but I walked away with only a few bruises and a small piece of glass in my thumb. The cops that arrived on-scene were amazed that I came out practically unscathed. They didn't even have to use the jaws of life to get me out; I just opened the door and crawled out. There was definitely a guardian angel looking out for me that day."
34."My brother had his wallet stolen. At the time, my mom was working a second job at night at a gas station on the other side of town. Three obviously underage kids were trying to buy beer, and when she asked for ID, it was my brother's! She gave those kids hell, and demanded his wallet back. They threw it on the counter and ran."
35."I got hit by a car and wound up in the front passenger seat without going through a window or open door. I went through the open moonroof."
36.And: "I met my boyfriend on a dating website when we were both in our 40s. We are a perfect match for each other. We grew up in the same town and lived in the same town as adults. He was in the same third-grade class as my older sister. Here’s where it gets weird. Two years into the relationship, my grandmother passed away one month before her 101st birthday. I had been living in her house for about four years (to help care for her before and while she resided in a nursing home). My boyfriend’s dad attended the wake and recognized my aunt and uncle. Turns out, my grandfather’s brother was married to my boyfriend's grandfather’s sister! Our parents have mutual first cousins, but my boyfriend and I are not related by blood. We are now in the process of buying my grandparent’s house — a home his grandparents visited many times so long ago."
Absolutely. Wild. What's your one-in-a-million story? Tell us in the comments! 👀
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
