We like to feel like we’re in control of our destinies. There’s a certain sense of safety in the illusion that we’re in charge of, well, everything. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We’re definitely responsible for our actions and how we react to what life throws at us: it’s vital to take ownership for what we do. However, many things are completely outside of our control. What family we’re born in. What our genetics are like. How people treat us. What opportunities we’re presented with every day. Whether or not we get hit by lightning. A lot depends on luck and pure chance… and how we deal with surprises, good and bad.
Internet users shared their most epic one-in-a-million experiences in a viral r/AskReddit thread, and we’re featuring their very best stories with you, Pandas. The things that happened to these people are incredibly rare, and they make for great reading. So make sure you’ve got some popcorn ready. Which of these stories about incredible coincidences impressed you the most? Has anything similar ever happened to you? Tell us all about it in the comments.
Bored Panda got in touch with health and fitness coach Anna Armagno Toussaint, and we discussed the things that we can control. We also tackled the topic of genetics, beating feelings of jealousy when we see someone who has advantages that we might not, and how to move past failure after failure if it seems like nothing ever goes our way. You’ll find our full interview with her below—don’t miss out, Pandas.
#1
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.
Image credits: CaptchaGremlin
#2
I was diagnoses with leukemia i got a bacteria growth which killed the leukemia, a real 1 in 1,000,000 chance
Image credits: InNeedOfFriend
#3
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 2 days to stay with friends of friends in the middle of the desert for 3 months.
2 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 3 times a week, at 5am) 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 of 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 dumb struck 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) in the table and sprint after her, explained and the rest is history.
Image credits: Dominusatrox
#4
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.
Image credits: Rainingwaen
#5
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.
Image credits: tysonedwards
#6
No 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 7, 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 dessert, 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 sandstorm, a lot of people live in these desert towns in China do this) found me on there way picking up a shipment, and the only reason they looked was bc 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 dads, 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 shades, it cooled me off enough to survive for a day or so!
Image credits: yusenye
#7
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.
Image credits: anon
#8
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 passengers 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 🙂
Image credits: anon
#9
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.
Image credits: anon
#10
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 epi pen with me in the event that I drink something too cold or have a severe reaction.
Image credits: person978
#11
I had 8 wisdom teeth, the dentist had never seen anything like it and called the whole office in to marvel at my teeth.
Image credits: IAdventureTimeI
#12
I have the rarest type of synesthesia, lexical-gustatory. It means I taste words.
Image credits: sunglasses619
#13
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.
Image credits: Grkitaliaemt
#14
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
Image credits: Mannaminne
#15
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.
Image credits: Sooodun
#16
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 by 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 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 was seen. The doctors informed my parents the nearest antivenin was a 3 hour helicopter ride away. The first symptom, lung failure, would occur after 2 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 2 hours after being bitten, a nurse came in to our dark room with 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.
Image credits: zildjiankill
#17
Had two 11cm 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 4 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.
Image credits: erieberie
#18
I once guessed a 6 digit random combination on the first try. It was the only try I planned to give, as a kind of scratchpad whatever moment.
Image credits: DawgzCookie
#19
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 anaphalactic 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 Epi-Pens and I’m not overly afraid of ants or bees.
Image credits: Unsolicited_Spiders
#20
I have completely unexplained hearing loss in my left ear. I had a cyst in it when I was 6, 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 3 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.
Image credits: charliebucket99
#21
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 awhile 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.
Image credits: jnb500
#22
The first one I don’t know about the exact odds, but I was born on 7/7/77 and weighed 7 pounds & 7 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 3, he developed an extra toe growing out of each one of his big toes.
Image credits: indiesnobs
#23
No idea on the actual numbers, but I was born with 12 fingers. Identical extra digits on each hand
Image credits: Crippl
#24
I’ve got the middle toes on both feet webbed. So did Stalin.
- You might also like: 50 ‘Weird Facts’ About The World That Might Give You A Fresh Perspective
Image credits: Notey22
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