Before cell phones, what was the scariest safety related situation that you were in?

[Anonymous]

Watching old Unsolved Mysteries episodes.I am old enough to remember pay phones. We would dial home from the mall pay phone and hang up to tell my mom we were ready to be picked up. We would use a determined number of rings, say three ring, to let relatives know we made it home safe from their homes.

What were some of your most worrisome encounters or incidents before cell phones?

[Anonymous]

I had a flip phone at the time but not an iPhone that had my location or anything. I was in Salt Lake City visiting a friend and took a cab late at night to her house. The drive pulled over under an overpass and turned around and grabbed my leg. I absolutely lost it and I think I freaked him out so much he pulled back on the highway and drove me to her house.

[Anonymous]

We were at the beach waiting for my dad who was running an errand. Hours went by and my mom was freaking out. Then my dad showed up with his leg all wrapped up because he'd sliced it open on a piece of glass and was in the ER getting it stiched up. Basic cell phones were common by the time I was 14, so I didn't have a lot of life experiences before them.

[Anonymous]

I lived in Chicago in the 90s. One night I was walking home from a friend's house around 11pm and no one was out walking in the neighborhood but me. I heard someone running behind me and I turned around and looked. It was a black guy in a hoodie and I didn't want to be racist so I convinced myself he was just some guy out for a run and I ignored him and turned around and kept walking. He caught up to me and and grabbed my bag (it was a large messenger bag over my shoulder) and then tried to pull me into an alley. That's when I started screaming. He ran off. Someone found my bag the next day in that alley.

That's just one example of that kind of thing that happened.

[Anonymous]

My car broke down several times in my early 20s. I basically had to hope the person stopping to help was a good person. Luckily they were.

[Anonymous]

I was young, pretty and 16 walking to the bus stop, and some guy started following me and chatting me up and kept trying to grab my arm to stop walking and chat more with him. I told him I was going to miss my bus and generally kept walking. He asked if I wanted to check out his car, to which he pointed behind him and there was a black car and a white van. I told him no, and started jogging towards the bus stop. I actually did miss the bus and ended up walking to my bfs house. It creeped me out but I didnt really think about it that much. It wasnt until I was a bit older I realized he was potentially going to kidnap me in a van!

[Anonymous]

I was a freshman at UMD when the tornado hit campus in 2001. I remember being terrified in the moment but not as much after. More like confusion, we were evacuated from the building and waiting in the basement of another dorm I think. It was two weeks after September 11 so I remember just wanting to call home but didn’t have a phone. I borrowed someone else’s phone to call and say I was safe. I was worried my parents would see it on the news and panic.

[Anonymous]

Before phones men were men we were about to got mugged in Times Square by 15 guys.

My 17 year old brother pushed me behind and leader was four feet from us and his 14 guys behind him. We need interrupted then wilding and kicking crap out of a couple who just left broadest to play.

My brother halfway pulls out the hand of a gun. Guy yells to friends stop. Whooosas John Dillinger I ain’t getting shot in stomach tonight.

They ran off. Funny it was not a gun, was a huge switch blade with the handle of a gun. I asked my brother what if guy came forward. He said I was going to hit switch stick it in stomach twist and we run.

Guy was lucky. I rather be shot

[Anonymous]

9/11

[Anonymous]

September 11th, 2001. I got a cell phone two months later.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thanks Pps for sharing your experiences!

Funnily, I remember having a Nokia or was it a Samsung flip on 9/11. I didn’t realize how uncommon they were.

[Anonymous]

Went joyriding with a bunch of high school friends on deserted country roads and wound up with a stalled car in a ditch. At night. It took about an hour for someone to come by and offer a lift. It was an older guy in a pickup truck who made two of the girls sit in the cab with him while the rest of us rode in the open back. He apparently said a lot of disgusting things to the girls in the cab and asked us all for big hugs when he got us to the service station. I think about that night 30 years later and I still shudder at all the bad things that could have happened.

[Anonymous]

I had a stalker in college that called my dorm room everyday. He would describe what I was wearing that day and proceed to talk to me sexually. I had to unplug my phone b/c he would keep calling back. It was terrifying to realize this person saw me everyday but I didn't know him. Campus police couldn't do anything b/c he had not physically harmed me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks Pps for sharing your experiences!

Funnily, I remember having a Nokia or was it a Samsung flip on 9/11. I didn’t realize how uncommon they were.

I had one through my work, PwC in NYC, but it was so expensive to use that most didn't use them except for emergencies. It was pre flip phone, it was like a thick tv remote. I actually tried to use it on 9/11, but could't get through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stalker in college that called my dorm room everyday. He would describe what I was wearing that day and proceed to talk to me sexually. I had to unplug my phone b/c he would keep calling back. It was terrifying to realize this person saw me everyday but I didn't know him. Campus police couldn't do anything b/c he had not physically harmed me.

Did you ever find out who it was?