COMMUNITY KUDOS: Woman seeks good Samaritan

This week our community finds itself in debt to a man who we know little about, only that he likely works for a medical supply company near Fort Walton Beach Medical Center and drives a white van bearing the company’s name.

We, and most particularly Katrina Lambert, are forever grateful that this gentleman took the time to check on the well-being of Claude Lambert and give him a ride home when he found him wandering and looking lost a couple miles from the hospital.

Mr. Lambert was lost.

It happened in October. Mr. Lambert was trying to follow an ambulance carrying his wife to the hospital but couldn’t keep up. He became confused when he arrived there and couldn’t find her.

The confusion led to disorientation, something Katrina said her father had never experienced before.

Katrina said her father wandered in the Racetrack Road area for a day-and-a-half before the unknown good Samaritan found him and took him home. Later, he wouldn’t remember eating or sitting, just walking.

“I am so grateful, you just do not know,” Katrina said. “I gotta thank this person from the bottom of my heart.”

The kind stranger asked the confused Mr. Lambert for his wallet, ignored the $100 inside and used the driver license to locate a home address. Once home, Mr. Lambert received further help from neighbors, who got him back to the hospital and helped him find his wife and car.

Sadly, Mr. Lambert’s wife, Jane, passed away before leaving the hospital. But Katrina said her father was able to spend critical time with her at the end of her life.

“There was no telling what could have happened to my dad out there,” she said.

Claude Lambert is safe now at a facility where he is being well cared for. Katrina said he’s getting better, and is able to recognize her and her daughter.  He seems to understand that for now he’s better off where he is.

Katrina said she’d love to thank the man she believes saved her father’s life, and hopes he might reach out to allow her to do so.