On Monday, Aug. 26, my friend Kim Westbrook went to the Walmart in Lindale with her 4-year-old granddaughter.

Suddenly she collapsed and was having a heart attack. Her heart had stopped.

But good fortune shined on the Westbrook family and friends that day.

Elizabeth Castleberry of Mineola was on her way to her nursing shift in the emergency room at the Christus hospital in Tyler when she decided to pop into that Walmart to grab a couple items.

It should be noted that Elizabeth has been working on her registered nurse certification and just found out the night before that she had passed the test.

Her emergency medical training kicked in, and she administered CPR as well as a defibrillator until the ambulance arrived, then when she got to work learned that Kim was one of her patients.

Kim had to be revived two more times, and 10 days later underwent heart bypass surgery.

Today she is up and around and well on the road to recovery. But it was touch and go for awhile.

Last week the Mineola Kiwanis Club honored Elizabeth with its citizen of the month award.

As any of the Westbrook family will attest, she saved Kim’s life that day.

Kim’s husband, four kids and nine grandkids will have her around for awhile longer, and all of us who love this outstanding lady cannot express enough our gratitude to Elizabeth.

Kim’s husband, Lane, and I have been friends for more than 54 years since he and his family pulled up stakes in Louisiana and moved to Denton, Texas.

We were in the same high school class, attended the same church and sang in the same church youth choir, among other extracurriculars.

Then Kim joined the family when they wed in that same church in 1981.

We have managed to stay connected all these decades, and through a circuitous series of events, wound up in East Texas, living just a few miles apart.

It’s made it easy for regular golf games and occasional dinners, and doing our best to keep up with just how many grandkids they have, several of whom are also living in this area.

It should be noted that Elizabeth is not the first in her family to be honored by the Kiwanis Club. Husband Cody, chief of the Mineola ISD Police Dept., was honored for the work he and his team have done to make our schools as safe as possible.

As he noted, she’s a full-time mom and wife, works full-time, and for the past year has also been a full-time student.

We are grateful for her hard work and dedication.

Kim has similar credentials, what with raising two sons and two daughters, helping out with all those grandkids, putting up with Lane for 43-plus years and having helped many Wood County families through her work with students as a therapist.

We can’t really say “Thank you” enough to Elizabeth, but sometimes those are the most important and impactful two words you can use.