35 People Share “One-In-A-Million” Experiences That Still Sound Hard To Believe
I’m not the luckiest guy when it comes to crazy experiences like these. I usually consider the bus running on time or my plane not being delayed the luckiest day ever. I did find $600 on the ground when I was a kid, though. That was a huge deal for me. Then my mom made me “turn it in,” and looking back on it, I’m pretty sure the people we gave it to just kept it for themselves. So much for luck!
Some of these people also had luck on their side. Others experienced strange coincidences or rare situations they never could have seen coming. Either way, they got a story they’ll be telling forever. I got a lesson in honesty that cost me $600.
1. A Wrong Number Somehow Reached The Right Person
“This is my mum’s story and I’ve posted it before, but she once called her friend (back in the day on the landline) and another lady answered. My mum asks if her friend was there and the lady says, ‘Sure, I’ll get her.’
My mum’s friend hops on the phone and asks how she knew she was here. Turns out my mum got a number wrong when dialing, called a random house where someone was hosting a Tupperware party, and my mum’s friend just happened to be attending it!! What are the odds of that s**t?”
2. Mickey Mouse Had A Pretty Unreasonable Birthday Gift
“For my seventh birthday we went to Disneyland.
They just happened to be having a car-a-day giveaway when we were there.
For my seventh birthday, Mickey Mouse gave me a Pontiac Firebird.”
3. A Tinder No-Show Turned Into An Unexpected Celebrity Cameo
“I was on Tinder and was talking to this guy. He was supposed to meet me for dinner. I texted him and no answer. Then I texted him on Tinder. Said that he couldn’t make it.
However, I got a text back from the number. It wasn’t the guy that I thought I texted. It was the actor Gerard Butler. I thought he was lying until he FaceTimed me. Nice guy.
I didn’t go on a date with him instead. He lives on the west coast and I live on the east coast. I didn’t keep his number because I respect his privacy. When he FaceTimed me he was super casual and asked me why I was using Tinder and he wished me luck on it.”
4. Losing His Phone Almost Ended A Love Story Before It Started
“How I met my wife.
I’m from the Netherlands, she is from the US. We met in Israel.
It was my first weekend in Israel. Decided to go on a pub crawl to meet some people and have fun. As I’m buying the ticket my now wife walks up to the counter to also buy a ticket. The girl working there introduces us. We hit it off the first night but I’m leaving in two days to stay with friends of friends in the middle of the desert for three months.
Two days after I leave I lose my phone, don’t have any way to get back in touch with her. I had little money and could stay/work with the people in the desert. But I kept thinking about her so after a week I say I’m leaving. Take the next bus (goes three times a week, at 5 a.m.) and then a train to Tel Aviv. I had no idea how to find her, where to stay and very little money.
I email a couple hostels to find a work/stay agreement. Those jobs are very popular and usually planned months in advance.
I get an email back when I arrive in Tel Aviv. I can come in for an interview because they have a spot (this is already ridiculously lucky).
Right after the interview and dropping off my belongings, I went back to the first hostel to see if they would give me information. They wouldn’t give me anything.
Now I’m at a loss. Tel Aviv is a city of more than half a million people, I don’t know anyone and have little more than the clothes on my back.
Kind of defeated I start wandering around/exploring the city. After a couple hours I get hungry and decide to treat myself to a restaurant. I’m well out of the tourist area and find a place that’s almost empty and rather cheap.
I sit down, order a drink and something to eat. As I get my food I see my now wife walking past the restaurant. She sees me, I see her. I’m literally dumbstruck and just kind of grin and wave (remember how I lost my phone? She didn’t know that and just thought I ignored her). She waves and keeps walking.
I throw like 200 shekels (way too much) on the table and sprint after her, explained and the rest is history.”
5. A Novelty Dog Tag Became The Most Important Thing They Were Wearing
“A bullet was deflected away from my heart by a novelty dog tag I wore. Skipped sideways through my chest instead, missing every vital organ, bone or artery.
Exited my chest and lodged in my arm. Was in the hospital for a couple hours and released with bandages and pieces of the bullet still inside me.”
6. An Argument About Cooking An Egg Led To A Rescue
“Not sure about the odds on this one, but I survived a ‘non-survivable’ plane crash.
I was on an old Po-2 (famous for being very safe and uncrushable) on a tour of the desert in western China when I was like seven. My father’s friend who hosted me and piloted the plane didn’t survive, but somehow I got out with a concussion and apparently passed out for almost a day in the middle of the desert, in the wreckage of the crash, 50 km from the town/airport, on the edge of the desert.
The people who found me were some tree planters (they plant greens in the desert to protect towns from sandstorms, a lot of people who live in these desert towns in China do this). They found me on their way picking up a shipment, and the only reason they looked was because they were making a bet on how fast the egg would cook in the sand and went off the road to test.
So, according to my dad, the theory that I might have lived was because the plane was mostly made out of fabrics and wood. So when the plane crashed, the front half collapsed and took the majority of the impact.
Though I got knocked out, I was probably covered under the wreckage and in the shade. It cooled me off enough to survive for a day or so!”
— yusenye
7. Winning Was Lucky. What Happened Next Was Generous
“Technically only 1 in 530,000 but I won $75,000 from a scratchie. Gave half to my friend who was with me at the time.”
8. Their Dentist Had To Call Everyone Over To Look
“I had eight wisdom teeth. The dentist had never seen anything like it and called the whole office in to marvel at my teeth.”
9. Words Come With Their Own Flavors
“I have the rarest type of synesthesia, lexical-gustatory. It means I taste words.”
10. The Ride Home From A Car Crash Also Ended In A Car Crash
“I was in two separate car crashes in two separate cars less than 45 minutes apart.
I wasn’t the driver for either crash.
First car was hit from the side. Friend came and picked us up, car lost traction and we slid off the road and hit a pole.
Neither was that bad, just poor timing.”
11. One Random Guess Was All It Took
“I once guessed a six-digit random combination on the first try. It was the only try I planned to give, as a kind of scratchpad whatever moment.”
12. Their Pupils Are Shaped Like Keyholes
“I have symmetric bilateral coloboma of the iris and retina! Essentially, my pupils are shaped like keyholes instead of circles.
A single coloboma is pretty rare, double coloboma is even more rare, and double symmetrical… well, you get it.”
13. A Bird Found The Smallest Possible Entrance And Made It Personal
“A bird got into my room through a tiny hole in the ceiling and took a s**t on me.”
14. Their Birthday Numbers Almost Committed To The Bit
“The first one I don’t know about the exact odds, but I was born on 7/7/77 and weighed seven pounds and seven ounces. Sadly though I clocked in at 6:50 a.m.
The other is that around the age of 14 I started to notice the outsides of both of my feet starting to get much wider. After a couple of years of buying expensive custom-made shoes they decided to perform surgery on my feet.
Turned out I had extra muscle growth along with something else I don’t recall at the moment. My podiatrist told me he submitted a scholarly article on it. May also have been genetic as when my dad was three, he developed an extra toe growing out of each one of his big toes.”
15. A Three-Dollar Fair Game Ended With A Very Large Prize
“Bought three dollars worth of pong balls at one of those games at the state fair. I think it was 10 balls, and the grand prize is in the middle and you have to land it in a small glass container.
I was having fun and just decided to throw it by flicking my wrist in a weird way. It bounced around for a while and landed right in the red glass container, which was the grand prize.
Even the worker was surprised that I got it! Had to walk around the state fair with a giant Charmander plush toy after that.”
— jnb500
16. They Arrived With A Couple Of Extra Fingers
“No idea on the actual numbers, but I was born with 12 fingers. Identical extra digits on each hand.”
— Crippl
17. An Unusual Trait Came With An Unexpected Historical Comparison
“I’ve got the middle toes on both feet webbed.
So did Stalin.”
— Notey22
18. Fries Have Never Been An Option
“I’m allergic to potatoes. Never met someone else who is so I guess it’s one in a million. Never eaten chips or fries.”
19. Cold Weather Is More Than An Inconvenience For Them
“I am allergic to the cold. Like literally. I get intense hives, swelling, I pass out, and throw up.
Doesn’t even have to be freezing. Below 45 degrees without a jacket and I can’t do it. I have to carry an EpiPen with me in the event that I drink something too cold or have a severe reaction.”
20. A Landline Call Ended With A Trip To The ER
“I was struck by lightning while talking on a landline. This was in the early ’90s. Lightning struck the telephone line and traveled through the handset to my ear.
My parents drove me to the ER. I couldn’t talk very well. My brain knew what I wanted to say, but my mouth didn’t want to say it. I had a terrible stutter.
My doctor told me that I had had a ‘dose of good, old-fashioned electro-shock therapy.’ My speech was normal the next day, but I get a terrible headache whenever a thunderstorm comes through.”
— Anonymous
21. A Bathroom Trip In The Middle Of The Night Saved Their Life
“Idk if this counts but I have died. One night around 11 p.m. I was trying to fall asleep but was just too hungry. I had just taken sleeping meds so I tried to cook some food fast before they kicked in.
Unfortunately when I went to eat I accidentally aspirated a bunch of it and passed out. Everyone in my house was asleep but amazingly my sister just so happened to go to the bathroom at 3 a.m. and saw my light on underneath my door so she decided to investigate.
She found me on the ground in full code and blue as a blueberry. She called 911 and they walked her through CPR. When the first responders arrived I was still in full code for another two and a half minutes but eventually was brought back.
I spent three days in a coma and like 10 days in the ICU. If she wouldn’t have gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night I wouldn’t be typing this.”
— Anonymous
22. Sleeping Wrong Led To Months Of Recovery
“I slept wrong one night and pinched a nerve in my neck so severely I lost the right side of my body. It just went silent like it wasn’t there for months.
I woke up in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced and couldn’t talk, move or do anything. The ER doctor thought I was having a stroke.
My doctor had never seen a case as severe as mine and it was purely a freak accident. Recovery took months but I have use of my leg and hand again, with some numbness. Other than pain and spasms I’m mostly back to normal.”
— Anonymous
23. A Childhood BB Gun Fight Ended With An Extraordinary Escape
“When I was 13, a friend and I got into a BB gun war. He put two BBs in the chamber and pumped it a bunch of times (breaking the traditional rules of warfare).
He shot me in the face and both BBs hit an eyebrow (one per side) and ricocheted off my orbital bones into my eye sockets… again, one in each eye.
I could feel them rubbing against the back of my eyes and went through two hours of surgery to have them removed. To this day, I’ve maintained perfect eyesight.
Navy SEAL sniper couldn’t make that shot twice. So believe them when they say ‘you’ll shoot your eye out’… sometimes both of them.”
24. A Mystery Illness Left Doctors Asking For Her Passport
“Not me, my wife.
We lived in Jacksonville, Florida. She rarely gets sick, but has mild insomnia. Around Wednesday, she had a low fever, and complained of aches and sweats at night and trouble sleeping.
That weekend she wanted to see the doctor… I told her she probably had the flu, just wasn’t used to the aches, and she always has trouble sleeping, but if she was still feeling bad Sunday we’d go to a clinic.
Saturday night she couldn’t sleep so we made an appointment for Sunday afternoon. But on our way there, sure enough she’s feeling better. Doctor checks her out, she’s feeling fine now, no fever. He says she probably had meningitis but is recovering.
I’m due to go on a business trip to California the next day (Monday) and ask him if he thinks it’s fine I go. He says, yeah, no problem. That evening, wife is eating and laughing and all is good.
Monday morning I leave early. That afternoon, my neighbor calls, and lets me know my wife was wandering in the street in a delirium. My wife didn’t know where she was, so the neighbor drove her to the ER. I book a flight home that night.
The hospital checks her out. She has a fever, her blood cell count is in the basement, and she is completely out of it mentally. They’re not sure what’s wrong, and a bunch of specialists start descending on her.
I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork on her medical history, where we’ve been, etc. They think maybe it’s some weird autoimmune disorder. Not good. She gets a bunch of transfusions and put on a cocktail of meds while they figure it out.
Third day in the hospital, the infectious disease guy comes in. Blood parasite. Maybe tick-borne, she’d been to the Midwest recently, coulda caught it if she went walking in the woods or a park. Next day he comes in. Figured out the parasite.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she left the country?’ Huh? She hasn’t… ‘Well, she has malaria.’ Malaria? I thought you couldn’t get that in the U.S. ‘You can’t, you need to go home and bring me her passport.’ What the hell?
I retrieve her passport… CDC comes, does a whole case study on her (which they wouldn’t release to us). Mosquito traps set up around the neighborhood, mysterious vans start driving by spewing clouds of stuff.
My wife stays in the ICU for a week, but recovers just fine. If you look at the 2010 CDC Infectious Disease report you’ll see a discussion of malaria, and how the XX number of cases all are related to people recently returned from endemic areas, except for one woman in Duval County, Florida who received it from a cryptic vector…”
25. Their Sister Was The Match They Needed
“I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia on my 12th birthday. It turned out that my sister was almost an identical match for the bone marrow transplant I needed (99.7%) and she is 14 years older than me.
From what I was told this type of match can only be found with identical twins. A year later after remission I developed a disease (GVHD) because of the bone marrow transplant I received.
The same thing that saved my life also made the rest of it extremely difficult… but I’m still here.”
26. They Reported A Medical Turnaround They Never Expected
“I was diagnosed with leukemia. I got a bacteria growth which killed the leukemia, a real 1 in 1,000,000 chance.”
27. A Hike In Florida Became A Terrifying Waiting Game
“I lived in Florida for the first 18 years of my life and spent most of my free time outdoors, fishing, camping, what have you.
The summer before my junior year of high school I found myself out hiking nearby my home with a buddy. We were stomping around in some clay deposits inside of a little ravine (even minimal geographic relief is dramatic in a place as flat as the gulf coast) when it started to Florida rain (for those of you who can’t relate, imagine a torrential downpour).
Our minds immediately jumped to the exciting possibility of a flash flood raging through the crevasses we were exploring. In an effort to make our day more exciting and not take any chances, we began to climb vertically out of the canyons versus take the lengthy path out of it horizontally.
We got to the top, put our feet on the ground, and did a pull-up. As I stood up I felt the ground underneath me squirm. I had stepped on a snake.
I screamed and kicked the snake that was latched onto my foot off me by reflex. As an Eagle Scout, I immediately recognized the red-on-yellow pattern as the snake slithered away and knew it was a coral snake.
We rushed home, drove to the hospital, and I was seen. The doctors informed my parents the nearest antivenin was a three-hour helicopter ride away. The first symptom, lung failure, would occur after two hours.
My parents called my friends and family and we all spent time together without me knowing my fate. My friends and family arrived and subsequently left together. My parents turned off the lights and we prayed together.
Around two hours after being bitten, a nurse came into our dark room with a gurney to collect my dead body. I asked the nurse, ‘Has there been any developments?’ to her surprise.
The doctors came in, shocked I was alive, told me it was a dry bite, and that I should remain whatever religion I practiced.”
28. An Appendix Problem Took Weeks To Find
“When I was 14 years old, I woke up one day with heavy stomach cramps. We called the hospital and they told us that I probably have a stomach flu and should go to the doctor next morning.
After one of the worst nights ever, vomiting and sleeping next to the toilet, we went to the doctor. I had a fever of 40°C and was aching a lot. The doctor told me I had to go to ER and have it checked out because she thought my appendix was inflamed and causing the pain.
We went to the ER and I stayed in the hospital for about two weeks, but they couldn’t find anything. They treated me with broad-range antibiotics and after two weeks I was feeling a bit better and they told me to go home and recover.
The night I got back from the hospital I went to bed and started hallucinating that I lived in a retirement home and that pirates were coming to steal our food.
So I was flailing around trying to fend off pirates when my mother came in and asked what all the fuss was about. I told her what was going on and she looked at me like I had summoned a devil. She took my temperature and she instantly took me to the ER again (I had a 41°C fever).
When we went back to the hospital I got treated immediately for inflammation and they did a wide range of tests again. They saw that something in my body was inflamed but they couldn’t find it.
I stayed in the hospital for about two more weeks when they finally found what was going on. My appendix was inflamed and burst the night I was having the hallucinations but on all the scans they couldn’t see my appendix.
The doctor told me that if I came in two days later I would have died because of the pus flowing in my body. Apparently there is a 1% chance of all the appendix cases that the appendix is so stretched out that they couldn’t see it on the scans or that the area was so inflamed they didn’t see it.
So after staying on antibiotics for about two more weeks they finally removed my appendix and all the pain was gone. I stayed in the hospital for over four weeks just because of my appendix and my bad luck on being that 1%.”
29. Even Measuring Their Allergy Required A Different Lab
“I was so freakishly allergic to ant and bee venom as a child that a single sting from a single little common black ant put me into anaphylactic shock.
When my allergist was preparing to start immunotherapy for me, he found that the in-office lab equipment wasn’t sensitive enough to measure the infinitesimally small amount of allergen with which to start my titration, so he had to send a sample of my blood to Johns Hopkins so that their lab could determine how much to give me.
I did immunotherapy for several years to reach an immune response level at which it would be safe for me to basically exist in a nonfrozen climate.
Good news, though: I’m good now. I’ve had a few run-ins with ants and wasps since my immunotherapy and my body didn’t freak out and shut down, and research indicates that if it hasn’t done that after this long, I’m probably safe for… maybe forever?
I don’t have EpiPens and I’m not overly afraid of ants or bees.”
30. Their Diagnosis Didn’t Follow The Usual Pattern
“I was diagnosed with a rare cancer that happens in males more often than females, usually happens to patients between 45 and 60, and happens in the abdomen or legs.
I was a 34-year-old female, and it happened in my right arm.
For the record I’m in remission, but I couldn’t believe I defied everything about the stupid f****r.”
31. A Four-Hour Surgery Became An Eleven-Hour Surgery
“Had two 11 cm benign tumours growing in my spine, resulting in gradual paralysis from my chest down. They had no idea how the tumours formed.
Surgery took 11 hours when they thought it would take four because the tumours were so complexly woven throughout my spine.
I now have pretty much half a spine and chronic pain but I’d take that over losing my life from paralysis and being unable to breathe.”
32. Every Test Said Their Ear Should Work
“I have completely unexplained hearing loss in my left ear. I had a cyst in it when I was six, and the surgery to remove it and fix the ear was successful.
When I was about 12, I woke up one morning with a killer headache and ear ringing, and after three days it went away and so did my hearing.
Doctors did multiple examinations and an MRI and they said it should be totally functional, it just isn’t. 1 in a million case.”
33. Their Sister Noticed Something That Changed Everything
“I am a 19-year-old male. In August of last year, I was driving with my sister, when suddenly her face turned cold. ‘Gavin, your eyes are yellow,’ I remember her saying.
I quickly pulled down the passenger’s mirror, and to my horror, two yellow eyes radiated back at me.
Fast forward, I spent a month being sick. The initial diagnosis was Hepatitis A.
Went back to the doctor, nothing was better (things were worse in fact). Was sent to the ER, then to the liver transplant unit at UCSF. By this point my eyes had turned muddy orange, and my pee was the color of… a mahogany tree.
Anyways, the team of liver doctors at UCSF managed to save my liver. I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. Oh, and my eyes are white again :)”
— Anonymous
34. A Medication Warning Turned Out To Be Personal
“Got a rare but potentially deadly rash from a medication. I laughed when I first saw the bottle with the warning, and said knowing my luck I’d get it.
I did. Ended up in a burn unit with my skin sloughing off 🙁 Not a fun week.”
— Sooodun
35. They Escaped An Eighteen-Month Captivity
“I was kidnapped when leaving work and held for 18 months, along with two other girls.
The guy who took us claimed himself to be an ineffable lower god, and used cult tactics, manipulation and control to have us be his family.
I was allowed to leave to the grocery store as an errand, but knew if I didn’t come back the others would receive my punishment.
I finally got away by stabbing my captor when I believed he was going to kill me.”