[kirse]

It means that the nitpicking, planning, penny pinching behavior that preceded the loss was pointless

Maybe the author is struggling with some sort of penny pinching behavior that preceded a life loss, but this is an incorrect conclusion.

Sometimes life just happens. And it has nothing to do with the validity or value of your preceding actions, but it's certainly a commentary on the futility of many of our efforts. The author sounds like he needs a good wisdom walk down the book of Ecclesiastes:

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."

[Jiro]

I don't remember where I saw it, but there's a version of that: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.