I saved a life, but did I save a life?

To readjust my finances, I sold my apartment in Lisbon and went to live in a farm with my mother, sister, and youngest niece. This is a temporary move while hunting for a new den in which I can settle my pillows.

The new arrangement involves a thirty minutes walk to and from the train station that I gladly embraced, missing as I was those walks which owning a dog entail.

One night, around 2 A.M., I was returning to the farm on a bicycle. The headlight began to flicker on this barely lit stretch of road. The batteries were running out but yet I could made out something lying on the other side of the road. It was apparently a drunken man whose lights went out on his way back from a nearby brothel.

As I checked my phone and noticed its batteries were running out as well, I heard the roar of a speeding car approaching. There is a blind road curve just before that spot where the man was lying. I started to wave frantically at the driver to come to a halt. The car braked, swerved, and was able to stop only a bit past the unconscious body.

“Man! If you weren't here I would have rammed that poor bastard!... Thank you! Thank you!” said the driver as he came out of the car, his eyes wide open at the realisation of what could have had happened to him, and to the drunken man.

The driver backed his car to lit the fallen man, and also to protect the latter from another speeding car, an ambulance was called, and I excused myself and proceeded home. My curiosity wasn't enough to beat my fatigue, and my priority had reverted to hug my pillows.

The following day I realised that the train had arrived late due to some impromptu tracks maintenance. And that I wouldn’t be there at all that night had I managed better my finances.

So I didn’t save any life. A series of coincidences did. And I cannot even know if the man was better off dead, as there's something already slightly defunct about passing out drunk and alone on the middle of a road after a night in a brothel.

How lucky was that poor drunken bastard?