Some of my buddies always make fun of me for having a flashlight all the time... but they don't hesitate to ask me if they can borrow it on a daily basis!
I visit an environmental laboratory frequently, and the technicians are always having to search for "stuff" under the false floor (i.e. dropped bolts, cables, etc). They all know that I'm the one with a light. They have even waited a couple of weeks for me to return to look for the lost loot.
When I recently visited a cave, famous for the emergence of roughly 250,000 bats on summer nights, and I was the ONLY person with a light. Everyone was struggling to walk along the rocky path to the cave's mouth, much less see the bats in the pitch black sky! Everyone was very appreciative to have been able to see the spectacle... and walk back to the paved road without doing a face-plant on the lose shale.
I can't say that my lights have saved any lives... but they have made many events much more enjoyable!