We probably all know the proverb 'better safe than sorry.' It's sometimes better to do something boring or difficult preemptively than take risks on what might happen later. These seemingly dull tasks might sometimes prove to be more important than we thought. At other times, they might even save someone's life.
One netizen was curious if other people had ever had such an experience. "What precautionary measure did you take, thinking 'just to be safe,' that unexpectedly ended up saving the day later on?" the Redditor asked. And the people delivered with all sorts of answers. From saving themselves from snow storms, taking out insurance just in time, or preventing car theft – check out the answers and upvote the ones you find the most riveting.
#1
Nurse here. Per usual, I was being overworked. I had over 9 patients in the ER. One patient had cancer and hadn't been feeling well. The doctor insisted he was fine. However, just to be safe I continued to regularly check in on him as he was chilling in a chair in the hallway. He started complaining of feeling super tired and off. His daughter (who also was a doctor) kind of said something along the lines of "you've had a stressful day dad. We will get you home once the doctor discharges you". Just to cover my a*s, I took his vitals. His blood pressure was 70s/40s.
I had a critical care room open and immediately rolled him in there, calling out to the doctor that something was wrong I could just feel it. The charge nurse got mad when I told her he needed that room (she didn't like that I was a travel nurse calling the shots, but I didn't care). Doctor felt I was overreacting but they repeated vitals and did a Stat scan. The guy was bleeding internally (I can't remember full details now) and they found Mets to his spinal cord. We were able to stabilize and ship him to a bigger hospital. That irritated ER doctor thanked me later, and said if that guy went home he most likely would have died that night. It felt really, really good.
All because I listened to my patient and my gut, and didn't let the stress of over 9 patients cloud my judgment.
189points
#2
I for some reason had the feeling that I was being watched, so I closed all the blinds and just let the dog out the back door instead of walking him.
My dog found the creep in my backyard, and dragged him by the pant leg out of a bush, thrashing him around. Based on the video the dog got at least 4 good bites in.
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180points
#3
As a manager, I noticed my team was getting saddled with harder work than the other teams. I informed my boss but she laughed at me and sent me packing. Since we tracked employee productivity by case worked I had a feeling I'd need some kind of proof in the future so I went back to my team, explained the situation and informed them I wanted them to keep daily logs of all of their cases and time stamp them even though the system did this automatically.
Fast forward two years. Another manager believes his employees are getting harder cases than the other teams, so he complains about it to my/his boss. His rapport with her is significant as he works the same shift, so she looks into it. After a three day secret investigation, I get one of the most aggressive and hateful emails of my career accusing me of cherry-picking millions of cases over years of work for my team. My response was to hand her daily logs from every employee for two years. 11000 sheets of paper, give or take. The absolutely incredulous look she gave me was worth it alone. "What's this?", that's 100% accurate daily logs of every employee and their cases worked. "Why do you have this?" To protect them from you when you inevitably did this. "This is ridiculous. There's no need for them to be wasting time keeping these logs!" There wasn't until today. Feel free to check them. "Oh, I will!"
Three days later I got my apology, turns out an employee was coming in early and scanning in my employees paperwork and tossing their cover sheets so there was no record they had done any of the difficult work. After running numbers, it was determined that the other manager was incorrect, and the evidence showed my team worked roughly 34% of difficult cases and accounted for 15% of the total workforce. The day shift employees all got into trouble for passing off hard cases.
The day I got to tell my team their logs literally saved all of our jobs was one of my best days at work, ever.
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161points
'Better safe than sorry' is what we call a precautionary principle. Even if we don't know if a certain thing will lead to harm, we should still take measures to prevent it. It is applicable in innovation, when evaluating environmental and health risks, or just in simple everyday life.
And just like everything else in life, it has its fans and critics. Especially amongst policymakers. Proponents claim that it can protect human health and the environment. Its critics say that it stunts innovation and is not based on scientific research.
For example, if a government is preparing to release a new medicine, it has to be thoroughly tested. So it can't be widely available from the get-go. But what if that new medicine could cure serious diseases? Shouldn't the government give it to all those who are in need? That's why sometimes the principle can be quite controversial.
#4
I run a reptile and exotic animal rescue in South Texas. We are having very cold weather.
I drove out to the rescue to check on everyone ONE MORE TIME even though I'd been out there many times today.
The heat had stopped working. We ended up having to move all the reptiles to my house. They would have died tonight.
It's crowded as f**k but everyone is alive. The 90 pound tortoise in my living room is probably gonna f**k some stuff up, but he's alive.
Edit: typos
Edit 2 for photos of [critters and rescue](https://imgur.com/a/jdo4hO0) (Reminder that these are temporary emergency enclosures and as a rescue some animals are sick and/or injured).
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151points
#5
Helped a victim of human trafficking get to a shelter.
Context: I was a medical student at the time and the city my school was in is a hub for human trafficking. I noticed a patient in the ER who had a pretty bad injury to her face was with a sketchy looking guy who was not related to her. She wasn't my patient, but I brought my gut feeling up to her doctor who then made up some excuse to talk to the patient alone and got her to help. I never talked to her myself, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got from looking at her and the man she was with.
142points
#6
Bought a tool for my car that is a combination glass breaker and seat belt cutter. Six months later, an EMT used it to cut me out of my car.
Now I buy them for everyone I know.
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121points
Our need to better be safe than sorry can also explain anxiety disorders. Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse uses the smoke detector theory to link the two together. This way, he explains why people are having panic attacks in situations where they are quite safe.
"I started realizing that it's essential for alarms to go off," professor emeritus at the University Of Michigan said. "Even if there's just a chance of danger. When the threat is uncertain, false alarms are worth it." It’s better to be safe than sorry. "We want to ensure we get warned about every single fire."
So anxiety acts as a defense mechanism of sorts. When we feel we might be in some kind of danger, our brains tell us that it's better to be safe than sorry and ring that panic attack alarm. "If there's a lot of danger lurking outside, it’s essential to your survival to have anxiety every time you leave the house, so you can be more hypervigilant and prepared to protect yourself," psychiatrist Joanna Cheek adds.
#7
I was scheduled for a mammography when I got 50. Somehow, it didn't work out that year, because the appointment was in Bavaria but I live in Düsseldorf. And I also thought it was not that important. But a year later, they sent me the invitation again.
I scheduled a mammography in Bavaria then, as I was visiting my parents anyway, and I thought, well, they probably aren't going to find anything, but if I have cancer and didn't have that mammography, I'm going to regret it. I expected a letter telling me that they had found nothing. But in fact, they did find something that needed further investigation. Turned out to be slow-growing breast cancer. One year earlier, it would not have been there yet. And one year later, it would have been much larger and possibly needed chemo as well as the surgery.
But as it was, they could just cut it out, and that was that.
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111points
#8
Bought a generator 15 years ago because a hurricane was forecast. Drove 3 hours to get it. Didn’t lose power that month. Hubby rolled his eyes. Two months later, the “October” storm hit, dumped 20 inches of snow, state lost power, we lost power for 13 days. We had the wood stove and the generator, well, some lights, stove and fridge.
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106points
#9
I wfh. I take screenshots of what my managers say in Teams. One manager said one thing, another tried to say it never happened. I produced the screenshot.
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94points
But is the 'better safe than sorry' rule always true? While all the entries on this list confirm the proverb, it doesn't quite work in all scenarios. Leadership coach Sylvia Lafair writes that it might not be so helpful in your career. The 'better safe than sorry' philosophy might hold you back from potential opportunities and greater career heights.
A Philadelphia-based recruiter, Kenneth L. Johnson, reiterates this claim. "Many of those ready for job placement hold back. They are afraid to take a risk. They claim it's better to be a generalist, to be safe rather than sorry. These folks may be passionate about their vertical talents, yet they hold back."
#10
I got life insurance on my husband during open enrollment and we joked. “haha I’ll be a rich widow ha ha” totally joking because we have never had any policies on either of us. He got sick and passed away 2 months later. The money saved my butt and I tell everyone to get life insurance. It’s so very important.
93points
#11
Slept with bedroom door open the other day; we almost never do that, and honestly it was because I wanted to be able to hear for some reason. Smelled gas at midnight, turns out my daughter had turned the stove nob just a touch before going to bed 5hrs earlier. That was a scary one.
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87points
#12
Used to have a ground floor apartment and a motion sensor camera on my patio connected to my phone. My friends and I got home ~ 4AM from being out all night and we’re chilln in the living room. Motion detected on the back patio. I dismiss it since it’s normally a stray cat or leaves blowing.
A few minutes later I decided to check out the motion recording just to see. It was a man that hopped my patio and was peeking at us through the slits in the blinds. I went to live view to see if he was still there, and he was.
I start going ballistic screaming and about to fight this guy. I’m storming to my patio door but he fled by then. Glad I checked the camera.
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83points
#13
Not stopping: About 20 years ago I almost stopped to help a stranded motorist, saw a highway patrol behind me and knew he would stop. That night on the news I saw that he did stop and a shootout ensued after the officer noticed the ignition wire had been pulled from the distributor. The "stranded" motorist was an escaped prisoner looking for another car to steal.
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81points
#14
Out of nowhere I decided to boil a ton of water for my son’s formula. My husband made fun of me for boiling gallons of water to store in several giant pots but then he took over the project. The next day a freak winter storm hit Texas. We lost power for a week and water for a week and a half. Because we were still in survival mode we had zero clue this storm was coming. We didn’t have much food for ourselves. But our baby boy was well fed during the storm.
I did worry about running out of formula and trekking through snow but thankfully we had also bought cans of formula a few days before the storm on a whim.
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77points
#15
This is a super mundane example but very useful to remember. Every time I'm in an airport, I take photos of my bags before checking them in.
So this one time they lose my bag and I'm sitting at the help desk and they say something like "Can you describe it? Does it have any identifying features?" and I was able to just bust out the photos. They found my bag very quickly.
Shared this story with people at a conference and now every year they all tell me they take photos of their bags, and every now and then it saves someone's a*s. On a similar note, also taking photos of room numbers and building locations.
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77points
#16
Not me but my parents…
I was probably an early teen and my parents were leaving to go run an errand but it was kind of early about 8 or 9am so I didn’t want to go and asked to stay home.
My Dad agreed and came to ask me again and I said I wanted to stay. They ended up leaving but turned back around and my dad said, they didn’t want me staying home and I better just get up and go. After some whining I agreed to go.
I was probably an early teen and my parents were leaving to go run an errand but it was kind of early about 8 or 9am so I didn’t want to go and asked to stay home.
My Dad agreed and came to ask me again and I said I wanted to stay. They ended up leaving but turned back around and my dad said, they didn’t want me staying home and I better just get up and go. After some whining I agreed to go.
I think we were gone maybe 20min when they got a call from the police that our alarm system went off and our house had been burglarized by two guys.
The police was able to get one of them but the other one got away.
The police was able to get one of them but the other one got away.
Who knows in what situation I would have been in had I stayed home.
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75points
#17
I was in the army and distant for awhile. See my grandfather after a few years. Despite my bad tendancies then, something told me to stay sober that day. Grandpa is very slow and distracted. After they leave i ask my dad how long hed been like that. "Like what? I thought he was just tired" I told him to call my grandmother and i yell NOW. Grandma takes Grandpa to hospital. Brain bleed. Doc says Gramps most likely would have died in his sleep that night. Had i drank i wouldve missed it. Edit: i was a medic, which is why i was able to catch it. And also why i drank alot. I also want to say i yelled because my dad is, despite being very intelligent, is functionally useless in a crisis and needs to be directed as such.
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75points
#18
Randomly went with my friend to buy her new car, just needed to get out of the house. Convinced her to buy GAP insurance cause it was cheap and I wish I had gotten it for peace of mind. Her car got stolen and it instead of being stuck with the loan the insurance paid out (after 30 days or whatever) and she got another car.
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72points
#19
Was coming home from sledding when I was a wee 6 years old. Just me and my dad, in the old Ford Explorer. Before we left the park, we had an argument about wearing my seatbelt (I think it was because I was bundled up and chunky, and did not want the added sensory discomfort of being strapped in to the passenger seat. Dad wins, I wear the seatbelt.
He forgets to put his on.
About a mile from our humble farmhouse, he’s going decently slow because the roads are slick, we hit ice and spun out anyways. We run right into the tree line through a barbed wire fence, and smack into a tree head-on pretty hard. Because my dad was not wearing his seatbelt, he ended up on my side of the car, head smashed into the windshield, blood EVERYWHERE.
Luckily, an older couple were driving down our relatively quiet country road and stopped to help. They drove my poor little traumatized self down the road to our house and took dad to the ER. He was thankfully fine, just needed stitches, maybe a mild concussion. I think my dad still had glass coming out from his scalp like 5 years after that, though.
Glad he was a persistent, good father and made me put my seatbelt on.
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66points
#20
Brought my get home bag with me on a drive and my car ended up crapping out on me leaving me stranded. After evaluating my options and taking a good hard look at the situation I decided to grab my bag and walk the rest of the way home. Ended up having to keep myself fed and watered as I walked and that bag really ended up being a real life saver.
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65points