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This isn’t a training exercise, Brine remembers thinking. I am deployed in Africa. Away from my family. Away from my friends.

“It becomes really real, really quick,” she says. “It kind of wakes you up, like, ‘Okay, it’s go time. I’m here for this.’ ”

Born in Calgary, Brine’s interest in the military was fostered by her husband’s experience in the infantry. The events of Sept. 11, 2001 prompted her to consider enlisting, and both she and her husband began working toward civilian EMT licences while closely monitoring the Canadian Armed Forces’ involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

The biggest thing that I’m afraid of is that I’m going to let my team down. Corporal Christina Brine

“We saw that medics were actually deploying in a full capacity,” she said. “So that’s really what kind of pushed us.”

Brine became a licensed EMT in 2005 and enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve in October of the same year.

In 2016, she began working as an EMT in Airdrie, and that experience, Brine said, prepared her for the deployment to Mali.

She serves a medical technician with the Canadian Medical Emergency Response Team (CMERT) that provides critical care to wounded U.N. peacekeepers and can be dispatched to isolated and dangerous areas to reach them.

“Having that EMS background definitely made coming here and doing this job a lot easier,” Brine said. “You’re used to dealing with being in the middle of nowhere with limited help, the only equipment you have is what you have in your bag … (or) in your truck, (and) you’re relying heavily on your partner, which is pretty similar to what we do with CMERT.”