She who dares wins
Surgeon Louise, 40, is first woman to pass SAS selection TV show
SHE is the first female winner of SAS: Who Dares Wins – and Louise McCullough has also proved that women can make it in the special forces.
Ex-soldier Ant Middleton, who fronts the Channel 4 programme, said before the show began: “I don’t think there is a place for women in the special forces at the moment.”
But 40-year-old Louise, who works as an orthopaedic surgeon at Albyn Hospital in Aberdeen, has proved him wrong.
He told an emotional Louise last night: “You’ve really restored my faith in allowing women into the military, especially on the front line, because if they’re all like you, they can certainly get the job done.”
The Ministry of Defence announced SAS selection would be open to women this year and the show followed suit by allowing female recruits to enter.
In the final, four men and four women were still standing – but Louise was the only female to seriously impress the real-life special forces veterans during the selection process.
Louise said: “I have to say it means a lot for Ant to say I’ve really restored his faith in allowing women into the military because there absolutely isn’t a single thing that a man can do that a woman can’t do.
“But it’ll take a lot to evolve that thinking and make us seem like equals.”
As Louise was shown shivering but unbreakable in her underwear in the freezing Chilean mountains, a panel of military hardmen – including Ant – are seen judging the recruits.
Ant praises Louise for her “f***ing laser beam” performance.
Louise was one of three to pass the brutal selection process in last night’s finale, with male contestants Mark Peart, 32, and Milo Mackin, 25.
Milo, 25, of Plymouth, Devon, had told the Mirror he applied to take part to impress his heroic older ANT MIDDLETON ON HER RESILIENT PERFORMANCE UNBREAKABLE Louise McCullough 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 Ant Middleton 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 She doesn’t flinch while being interrogated 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.”
You’ve restored my faith in women in the military
Milo & Mark also passed process