SANDPOINT — For one Bonner County resident, law enforcement training in mental health was literally the difference between life and death.

When her mental health issues required police intervention, the unnamed woman found a benefactor in Sandpoint police officer Theresa Heberer, who successfully brought her to a hospital and stayed with her in the emergency room while she calmed down. Later, she advocated for the woman receiving psychiatric treatment. Without that extra measure, the woman likely would have been discharged without getting the help she needed. The woman’s friends and family say that Heberer’s intervention saved her life.

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