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. I think that’s my new purpose, kind of helping others really, which is really good, I’m loving it.’

The bad stuff is the same stuff that everyone else goes through, not so much the PTSD and mental health.”I knew we were about to crash so I braced myself hard against the door frame and placed my hand on the release straps of my harness,” she said.

So, how did McConaghy end up in such desperate circumstances? She had seen some terrible things on deployment during her service, not least flying on the medical flights recovering badly injured and dead soldiers from the battlefield. Then a close friend succumbed to terminal cancer and her own marriage to a soldier ended. And she tried to deal with it all on her own. The book touches on, but is not dominated by, the theme of women in the armed forces. This is a topic that has been constantly in the UK news following a series of sex-related scandals. But McConaghy is pragmatic, explaining that in her experience, the men have never treated her or the only other female on her squadron any differently. Liz summarised her experiences with mental health and shared her tips for those who are suffering, and those who know someone else who is suffering. If you are quite open and authentic about that then it gives other people a bit of an idea. If you’re struggling and for you, if you’re always saying the number 3 for a few days in a row, [and] you’re like ‘this isn’t good’, maybe speak to someone. When people ask twice, then sometimes that’s just enough to open the tiny tears tap.” The book is an honest and humorous account of Liz’s ‘ best of times and worst of times’ and how her experiences flying on the Chinook have changed and moulded her into the woman she has become.Anyone who’s lost someone to suicide can kind of hear my story and realise they couldn’t have done anything to help. I [was] so far down the PTSD route that nobody could stop me. I think it’s an important message for people who have been affected by suicide to know that. That’s the questions [that] are always left after suicide, isn’t it? What could I have done to help them? How could I have stopped them doing that? Does McConaghy have any words of wisdom for people thinking of following the same kind of career path?

I think if you want that extra ‘ohh, isn’t she amazing? Look, she’s the girl doing this job,’ you’re almost saying that they’re not capable of it in the first place.’ Aged 21, Liz was the youngest member of the aircrew to deploy to Iraq and the only female crew member on the Chinook wing for four years, so her story is entirely unique. Liz was only 21 when she became the youngest Chinook crewmember to serve in Iraq, and then became the longest serving female member. With her hands tied together, McConaghy felt it “roll down my chest and all the way to my belly button. Still makes me cringe now thinking about it. But at least it distracted me from the screaming”.What follows is sketchy, but the next memory McConaghy has is waking up from a 40-hour coma in a hospital bed in Basingstoke. Miraculously, she had survived. But how? It turns out, after swallowing the pills, she had called Samaritans and the emergency services. Liz became the longest serving female Chinook aircrew member after serving for 17 years. Liz reflects on why she stayed for so long, and why she eventually had to leave. You do a six-month school called the UCF, which is where you work up to learn how to operate and then you get sent to your first squad, which for me was 27 and then you have to do what’s called a combat ready work up. So that is essentially learning how to operate the Chinook when you’re getting combat ready. You learn what rules you can bend when you’re at war; if you’re getting shot at, what you can and can’t get away with. We’re all really bad at saying: ‘I’m living the dream, things are great’. And, whenever you do get asked that question, give your mental health a number. Are you a six, a five or maybe a seven today? There are two reasons for that. Firstly, it helps you gauge where you are, so you’ll notice changes or not. If you’ve been at number three for a few weeks that’s not good. But if you can get everyone to use that system, it’s also a good measure for other people and help them notice how you’re doing.”