Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

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However, her most significant honour of all her duties was serving on the Medical Emergency Response Team, or MERT, flying ambulance as it was more commonly known. This involved recovering wounded soldiers from the battlefield, often under fire.

My basic training, there were three of us which is good. My Shawbury course (RAF Shawbury, a helicopter training base), I was the only female crewman, then I was the only one on the Chinook force for [several] years, so I’m quite used to being in that environment. I was not the first female crewman by any stretch, there were a couple before me.From 2007 McConaghy crewed the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), a high-octane M.A.S.H-style air ambulance service in which a Chinook was on constant readiness at Bastion to fly to the middle of the battlefield and rescue seriously wounded soldiers. On her busiest day of operations in 2008, she and her crew flew 14 separate sorties – including one where five British soldiers had been killed at a forward operating base. Instantly I wanted to become that. I didn’t really understand what ‘that’ was but I wanted to be it!” she recalls.

Today, McConaghy, 40, is thankfully in a much better place. She is proud of her time with the RAF and loved being a Chinook crewman. But she also knows the experience almost killed her and wants others in a similar position to know they can get help. By way of a parting message for readers, McConaghy appeals to anyone going through similar issues she has experienced to seek help.

Starting from such a young age, Liz reflected on where it all started, going with her brother to his BARB test. BARB stands for British Army Recruit Battery and is a computer-based psychometric test someone must take before they can serve in the Army, to decide if they are suitable. Just like anything in our body that breaks, with time, rest and the right people to help you recover, we can mend our broken brains. I’ve closed the door on that dark tunnel and am walking a new, more positive path.”