MORRISTOWN, Tenn. (WATE) — A hospital employee and cancer survivor died tragically when she was fatally struck by a car in Morristown on Monday, leaving friends stunned and saddened.

Beth Block was struck and killed by a pickup truck while in the crosswalk near the Hamblen Morristown Health System Facility. The tragedy left her former co-worker and friend Jillian Ryan shocked.

“It broke my heart,” Ryan said. “She just fought cancer and won.”

The pair first met as coworkers at the hospital.

“She made me feel comfortable right away and she is one of the first people I got to know,” Ryan said. “She would go in patients rooms and they would be so upset for something and she always just got them calm. She never had a bad thing to say about anybody.”

Ryan described her friend as a fighter.

“With her fighting cancer, anybody that can go on Facebook and you know they’ve lost their hair from it and they pose with a smile and they rock it, they do and that’s what she did,” Ryan said. “I wish that gave me nothing, but admiration I wish I had her strength.”

Ryan said Block never knew a stranger and was kind.

“She was always outside doing stuff. She was you know with her friends going out to the movies,” Ryan said. “She was friends with everybody.”

Ryan believes that her friend touched the lives of everyone she met.

“She taught me that everybody is going through something,” Ryan said. “To always smile and just give them a kind word.”

Morristown Hamblen Healthcare System released the following statement on Tuesday

“Morristown-Hamblen Healthcare System is deeply saddened by the loss of MHHS employee Elizabeth Block. We pray for grace and strength for her family, and extend our sincere condolences to Beth’s loved ones and to her colleagues and friends at Morristown-Hamblen.”