| History/Origin |
Named after Ruth Heathcock who was the wife of Constable Ted Heathcock (d. 1943), a long serving officer in the NT Police Force. In February 1941 while stationed at Borroloola, Ruth Heathcock, at great personal risk, travelled some 80 miles in a dug-out canoe up the McArthur River and across the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Wearyan River to come to the aid of H. J. Foster, a salt panner on the Wearyan River who had shot himself. Constable Heathcock was out on patrol when Foster's call for assistance reached Borroloola and when Ruth, an inland mission nurse before her marriage, called in the Flying Doctor Service, the plane was unable to land near Foster's camp because of the flooding. Ruth was commended for her bravery in Admr C. L. A. Abbott's 1944 - 1945 Annual Report on the Administration of the Northern Territory addressed to the Minister for the Interior. |