Australian Story: Mar 5

Australian Story hears from friends of outback nurse Gayle Woodford, who was murdered when she was working alone in South Australia’s APY Lands in 2016.

They are campaigning to ensure what had happened to her will never happen again.

‘Gayle thought she could make a difference and she was a very good nurse. She was a very trusting person,’ Keith Woodford, Gayle’s husband.

‘There was a general sense amongst, particularly amongst the three of us in Fregon that something was going to happen to one of us eventually,’ Belinda Schultz, friend and former colleague

‘Davey didn’t discriminate about who he attacked… he had a history going back almost 20 years,’ Andrew Dowdell, Adelaide Advertiser

Outback nurse Gayle Woodford was working alone at night, on call, in the remote APY Lands community of Fregon when she vanished from her front door. Police were at best an hour and a half away and she had no back up security.

Three days later convicted sex offender Dudley Davey was charged with her murder.

For the first time, colleagues of Gayle’s speak to Australian Story about their safety concerns.

‘It would regularly happen at Fregon that you would have to barricade yourself in the clinic and lock the doors,’ says nurse Belinda Schultz.

‘Police resources are low in the APY Lands. If it gets to a point where they don’t feel safe enough to work, you can’t run a health service. It is black and white,’ says Gayle’s former colleague Dr Phil Humphris.

In this Australian Story exclusive, we meet Gayle’s husband and the remote area nurses who joined up in grief and outrage to make sure what had happened to Gayle would never happen again.

They’ve started a campaign to introduce “Gayle’s Law” in every parliament in the country to ensure remote area nurses are “never alone”.

We also hear from the residents of Fregon who are struggling to come to terms with what happened to such a popular member of their community.

Monday 5th March on ABC.