I love the Americans in this thread answering the question literally

12 ga, not sure if slug or shot.

Gun was held to my head for 20-30 mins during some gang stupidity involving a family member not wanting to leave a party I was supposed to pick them up from. I left, came back and the place was crawling with police and EMS. The same gun, held by the same guy was used to shoot another person in the face.

I ended up having to give statements, got subpoenaed, and myself, family, and friends being threatened by same gang for a number of years.

I was watching some amature tree removal people rig a pulley system to a tree that partially fell over from about 50 yards away with a few other people. They hooked it up to a pickup truck and drove forward at full power. The pulley snapped and landed behind me on an incline a fraction of a second later. I felt the wind from it go over my head and sort of visually noticed it go by in the same way someone would notice a cannonball go clear across a field in an instant. It was most certainly going fast enough and weighed enough to completely demolish my skull and everything inside. Very surreal, we opted to leave them to their work after that.

The biggest?

That time we dodged a Scud ballistic missile. I don’t mean we saw one get intercepted or had one land nearby and just watched. We actively dodged it.

So there we were in Iraq in 2003. We’re outside Al Najaf and the battle for the city is raging. There are artillery rounds going both ways, planes dropping ordnance, and thousands of civilians leaving the city on foot. Mostly we ignored them because we had a job to do. But one guy turns around suddenly and starts walking back into the city. Several of us noticed him and started asking the others around us, “is he?.. Is he pacing? Did he turn around just to the side of our position?”

The consensus quickly formed that, yup, he was walking in a way to count his steps and get a distance measurement. Our leaders called up the chain and a plan quickly formed. If it was nothing then there wouldn’t be an interruption to the battle anyways. The second the sun was down we moved out to a new position in complete light discipline. Nobody was allowed any light but what they could get through a night vision device. Not even the IR flashlights and markers.

In our new position everything was normal until around 0300 when a huge explosion went off right in our previous fighting position. They had indeed launched a SCUD based on one man pacing a distance measurement, and they were accurate. If we hadn’t moved that night then I wouldn’t be here.

So we dodged a Scud Missile.

Almost went to college for art, decided last minute to do engineering instead. Still ended up getting heavily involved in art later in life because I had the financial freedom from tech to do so

That time I said no to Arthur Anderson when they were recruiting me hard - offering to fly VPs to me the next day (Sat) to convince me not to start a new job on Monday.

Taken literally, a gang shooting aimed at somebody about 10 feet from me. A friend nearly tackled me and dragged me into the bar I was standing in front of.

having kids. If I had established myself a bit earlier financially it might have happened before I saw the signs of where things were going.

High school girlfriend was a bit intense and told me she wanted me to marry her and that she wanted children. I was 16 at the time. I was terrified by that, because you know, 16, and she got mad at my nervousness. She dumped me a week later and wouldn’t you know it, married less than a year out of high school with now 3 kids.

I went on to get my degree, move far far away, get a much better job and a much better partner. I think back to who I would have been if removed me had let myself be pressured into that. Small town, working at the gas station or pizza joint, supporting 3 kids…

I was driving home from an event late at night on a highway. It was warm and my AC wasn’t working, and my eyes felt heavy. My blinks kept getting longer until I realized my eyes had been closed too long. I realized I was falling asleep at 65mph and opened up the windows and managed to wake myself up, but if the road had been any busier I could have killed someone, myself included.

I’m guessing .30_06 or .308, but I never saw the shooter. Just heard the zip of the bullet and then the gun.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere was an experience.

Shortly after getting my driver’s license, I stupidly merged onto a road with a 40 mph speed limit without looking left.
A car was coming right towards my driver’s side door. The driver of the other car made their brakes squeal (this was before ABS). Right before they would have hit me and probably killed me (this was before airbags), they released their brakes, swerved around me, and kept going.
It was some really impressive driving, and it likely saved my life.

As an EU immigrant, left the UK after the Leave vote but before Brexit and Covid.

It’s not a bullet but more like a whole lot of bullets.

Mind you, most of it was entirely predictable back then.