This article is based on the AskReddit question “What’s the most statistically unlikely thing that has ever happened to you?”
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
24. The gaming community
About 7 years ago, I worked at a McDonald’s in a small town (less than 2000 people). This guy and his family had moved from a few towns over and he became a regular customer. One day I was taking his order and saw he had a Halo 3 wallet, so I suggested we play some time.
I grabbed a pen so we could write down our gamertags, and we realized that we were already friends. We had met in a game a few months prior and been playing semi-regularly at that point.
TheWritingWriterIV
23. Can this guy get any luckier?
A friend was parking my car and they heavily scraped the side of the bumper. Fast forward 3 months while I’m still too lazy to have it repaired, a guy in a parking lot backs up into the exact spot where the previous damage was. The accident was his fault and his insurance paid for the entire repair.
jcepiano
22. NOT bluffing
Royal Flush in a game of Texas Hold’em. I was shaking with excitement, terrible poker face, but 2 other guys thought I was bluffing and went all in.
Dr_on_the_Internet
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21. There is something about that exact date
My sister was born may 17. My cousin was also born in may 17. My wife has a close cousin that she consider like a sister that was also born in may 17 (at the same year of my sister), this cousin also has a close cousin that was born in may 17. I got my wife pregnant in 2015, she should gave birth in may 25. My father joked the entire pregnancy that the baby would be born in may 17. Guess what happened at 6:50 may/17/2016
rataktaktaruken
20. Baby miracles!
It’s one of two things.
I once ran into my uncle in the Denver airport. Neither of us lives in Denver, neither of us was flying to or from Denver. We both just happened to have connecting flights at the same time, and they were one gate apart from each other.
The second is the conception of my second child. It was very hard for my wife and I to have our first kid. It took three years, three miscarriages, and medical assistance. The second daughter was conceived shortly before the older one’s first birthday, at a time when we were having sex once a week if we were lucky. Plus my wife was on birth control, was still breastfeeding, and hadn’t had her first period since giving birth.
molten_dragon
19. These keys are forever useless
I lost some keys while crossing a mountain creek in the alps. More than two years later I found them on the shore of a mountain lake a few miles downstream. They didn’t fit anymore, so I don’t know what the universe was trying to tell me with that gesture
Avempartha
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18. The mountain of cameras
I was about 18, and I was heading into the biggest nightclub in the world (Privilege in Ibiza) and I had a disposable camera with all of my photos from my holiday on it.
The bouncers told me that I wasn’t allowed to take my disposable camera in with me, and that I would have to throw it away. I looked over to the side and there was this huge mountain of disposable cameras, from people who had the same problem as me. There were hundreds of them, honestly maybe even thousands. Most of them were the same brand as mine and looked identical. I sighed, figured that having the experience was better than keeping the photos, and threw my camera onto the pile.
Went in, had a few drinks, smokes and saw a sex show. At the end of the night we stumbled outside to see daylight, and the pile of cameras looking even bigger. I walked over to it, grabbed one at random, thinking that I would at least get them developed and get a laugh out of someone else’s photos, and lo and behold – it was my camera.
ithoughtyousaidgoat
17. Even streetlights are afraid of him
About 50 or so streetlights have spontaneously gone out as I’ve walked underneath them.
It’s happened regardless of which city I’m living in, time of night, weather conditions or anything like that, and I’m only a 20 something.
I have no idea why, but apparently I’m a danger to civil infrastructure.
cmagnificent
16. How is he still alive?
Was laying down in the back seat of a 1998 or so Dodge Neon. Car crashed at about 75mph, it rolled 3.5 times and landed upside down. During that flipping fiasco I somehow inadvertently managed to get my elbow over my head in time to go headfirst out that tiny little rear window. I landed on my feet (didn’t stick the landing exactly, but did a messy, gentle tuck/fall down in the mud thing a couple feet from the road).
My elbow was opened to the bone, but packed with mud so I had no real issues there. I had no broken bones, my cell phone was still in my pocket and working. I got up and called for help.
I have no clue how I got physics-ed out that window without dying. According to the paramedics most people don’t get thrown out of cars and live much less walk around relatively fine.
oh-propagandhi
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15. The rarest hit
I happened to be at a baseball game where a player (Cory Sullivan of the Rockies) hit two triples in one inning. It hadn’t happened since 1951, has never happened since (it was 2006), and has happened only 11 times in the history of the major leagues. It’s a very “who cares” accomplishment, but it’s rarer than a perfect game.
Somehumanmale
14. This only happens in the movies
1) Totalled my car 3 years ago. Both sides completely caved in around my seat. No one was hurt but that thing was unsalvageable. The paramedics couldn’t believe it.
2) Had an argument with some guy in 4th grade at recess. I had been jumping rope, and he and his friends weren’t happy when I wandered into “their turf. I’ve always been bad with words, so I lost the discussion almost immediately. He scoffed and turned around to leave. Being an angry ten-year-old, I threw one of the handles of my rope at his face and missed it instead looped twice around his neck. I pretended like that was my intention and pulled him back over like “We’re not done here.” One of my most awesome moments and it was a complete accident.
TheFallingEagle
13. Sing along with the radio
Was singing a song walking out to my car. I turned the car on, and the radio came on. The radio was not only playing the song I was singing, but it was almost at the exact right spot. It was maybe just a couple seconds off.
I think the song was Jump by Van Halen.
cheap77
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12. The bat story
My wife and I played the video game Batman Arkham City together for weeks on end. The night we finished the game and shortly after my wife had left for bed, I was shutting down the computer when all of a sudden a bat flew through the security gate into our living room. Flying circles in the room. I guided the bat out and told my wife about it. We had a chuckle about the whole incident especially after our weeks of playing Batman.
Anyway, the following day at dusk I was seeing two friends out after their visit. Walking them out I told them the story of the bat after we played Batman. Immediately after finishing the story from out of nowhere a bat flew right into the left side of my neck. It gave me such a fright! I was so startled that I slapped at my neck.
Worst part is my two friends didn’t see the bat crashing into me and were surprised at my sudden reaction to apparently nothing. They didn’t see anything because it was too dark already at dusk.
So, needless to say I don’t share this story with many people as I’m afraid I’ll come across as a jerk making up crazy stories.
HuggyOnline
11. Meeting acquaintances in odd places
I inherited my dad’s tendency to meet people I have a connection with in the weirdest of places. I met a girl I went to high school with on a street in Beijing. In a small city in eastern Russia, I met an American ex-roommate of a girl I’m studying with in university in Sweden. I accidentally bumped into my mother’s close colleague in an underground club in Beijing.
Cahootie
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10. Connected in a strange way
Not me but 2 friends:
I used to go to an International embassy school in India. So most students had parents who were diplomats / employees of multinationals. So these 2 foreign girls end up in my class and they : a) have the same name, let’s call them Jenny C and Jenny L. b) immediately hit it off and become best friends. c) later discover that Jenny C’s mother is the ex-girlfriend of Jenny L’s aunt’s husband (so her uncle by marriage).
I mean, imagine the odds. Two girls who have no connection whatsoever in their country of origin end up being born the same year, having the same first name, being in the same class in the same school on the other side of the world at the same time, becoming BFFs, and their families being secretly connected in some obscure way. Like, seriously, WHAT?!
nebulous_obsidian
9. What a small world
Met a guy in 2015, became friends with benefits, fast forward to fall 2016, he gets a Facebook message from a 24 year old guy claiming to be his son, does some investigating, and yes, it is in fact his son from a one night stand. I look up his Facebook and my best friend from high school is on his friends list, she’s his aunt and he lived with her when I was friends with her in high school. I babysat him a few times when he was a baby.
Hurray_for_Candy
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8. Bad luck
I left my car door unlocked in my drive way. It’s a Saturday and I’m careless. I planned to run some errands that day, but couldn’t find my wallet. After tearing up my house looking for said wallet, I return to my car and notice all my spare change is gone. My immediate first reaction is Oh, I left my wallet here too!” I race to the bank, in a fruitless attempt to cancel my debit cards before they can be used. It was a slow day and I was able to get one of those dedicated customer service reps very quickly. I tell him my situation and we begin process of cancelling. Just as he was about to cancel, a guy with a do-rag walks in and the whole bank freezes. Guy says he has a gun and proceeds to rob the bank for about $500. Bank is on complete lock down and the investigators interview witnesses for hours. All I’m worried about in cancelling my cards from previous robbery. Finally was allowed to just pick up my phone and cancel everything that way. I went home and shut myself off from the world the rest of the day.
jbtravel84
7. Stranger danger!
When I was a teenager I was walking through the parking lot of a
Burger King when an older man approached me and started hitting on me. He asked for my, and I said, “My name is XXX, and I’m 16.” He immediately apologized and practically ran away.
Two years later I’m at a gas station fuelling my car, and I hear someone call my name from across the parking lot. This man comes jogging up to me and says, “You’re XXX, right? Do you remember me from Burger King? You must be 18 now, right?”
Weirdest thing ever. He asked for my phone number. I did not acquiesce.
PsychedelicGoat42
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6. Miraculously survived
4 years ago I threw up so hard I tore a 4mm hole in my esophagus a few cm below my heart. I was diagnosed with boerhaaves syndrome which has a near 100% mortality rate when untreated/no surgery. Even when it is diagnosed and treated surgically within the first 24 hours there is still a 25% mortality rate.
After 11 days in the hospital and 9 days without food I had recovered without surgical treatment. I was told by my doctors that only a handful of patients have survived without surgery.
nixrsen
5. But how?!
I have a unique last name. I’ve never met another non-relative with my last name. I get a new job and a different company in a city I was not born in. In a company of 1,000 people, in my department, on my floor, 5 cubes from my office is a girl with the same last name as me. The kicker, her first name is the same as my wifes.
1h8fulkat
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4. Coin flips
In 5th grade I didn’t want to take a test and saw a quarter on my teacher’s desk. I was always a talker and convinced her to flip the coin and if I guessed it right I didn’t have to take the test. She flips it and I say “heads” and it lands heads. She laughs and flips it again and I say heads again and it lands heads. I guessed the coin flip correctly 38 times in a row. I didn’t take the test that day!
jfurd1337
3. Why do I see you everywhere?
I became friends with this dude I worked with in Japan, we both leave country around the same time. I return to the US and he goes to Europe. Two years later I’m working in Florida, I go to my workplace snack bar, and there he is ordering a coke. He just happened to be there for training. Five years after that, I’m working help-desk at a job in NY. I finish a call and check the help-desk window for customers, and there he is waiting to talk to one of my coworkers. We see each other and stared in shock, both of asking the other why this keeps happening.
Maldibus
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2. Touching past and present
I unintentionally rented an apartment that was across the hall from the apartment my mother had lived in when she was the same age. It was a little 20 unit brick apartment building- there are thousands of similar places in the city.
I knew that she had also lived in Boston in her twenties but didn’t know what neighborhood, and she wasn’t involved in the apartment search at all. I didn’t learn that she’d lived there until I sent her my new address about a week before move-in. We were 20 years and 6 feet apart- you could stand in the hall and touch both front doors simultaneously.
Anonymous
1. Dont take life for granted
I was in a horrible roll over car accident and walked away from the scene.
The medics didn’t think I needed help because I didn’t feel any pain, so my mom drove me to the hospital where they sewed my head shut (I split it open in 3 places) then they told me to take ibuprofen for swelling and pain and sent me on my way.
For two weeks the pain kept getting more and more unbearable until I was laying on the couch one day before school and went to sit up and immediately blacked out.
A quick trip to the doctors with some X-Rays and MRIs found out I had fractured my C4 and C5 in my neck and fractured L2-5 in my lower back. I also had a head injury they equated to “Getting hit in the head with a hammer repeatedly” and wondered why the hospital didn’t look me over.
10 years later I can still walk, in constant pain but I’m alive and its always a reminder to not take life for granted because given my odds of what happened and how the car looked, I shouldn’t even be here.
ImTwoDee
(Source)