Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
She who dares wins
Surgeon Louise, 40, is first woman to pass SAS selection TV show
ON HER RESILIENT PERFORMANCE
brother Travis, who was killed by an IED with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan in 2009.
Earlier in the series Ant Middleton lookalike Mark, 32, revealed his own tragedy – his wife Chelsey,
27, killed herself last year.
The firefighter from Rotherham, South Yorks, found her body at home.
Louise may have made history on the show but she said she never considered gender during the two weeks of filming. She said: “You get to where you get to on your merit. It was not a competition – it was a competition with myself.
“I don’t think I found it tougher than the male recruits, we all found it equally difficult. “That’s one of the things that drives you, everyone’s in the same boat, struggling with aches and pains.
“There was definitely no favouritism being female.” And she said she did not worry about hurting herself during the most brutal tasks, such as swimming beneath the ice of a frozen lake and free-falling into a gorge in the Andes.
Louise added that her dentist husband Neil, 44, kept her going. She said: “It was probably harder for him because he didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.”
She would do it again in a heartbeat, adding: “I’ve met friends for life among the inspirational recruits.”