[1] Later the same year, she enlisted in the New Zealand Army Nursing Service and embarked on the hospital ship Maheno.
In October 1915, Looney was with other medical staff from the hospital travelling aboard the British troop ship, the SS Marquette, when it was torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea.
She was made an Associate of the Royal Red Cross by King George V.[2] After the war, Looney returned to New Zealand and worked as matron of the Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer Springs, and the Red Cross Convalescent Home in Invercargill.
She later opened her own private hospital, Cairnsmore, and nursed there until her marriage in 1921 to police officer Thomas Clarke Muir.
[1] The Muirs ran hotels in Christchurch, Napier, Otautau, Winton and Dunedin, and raised two sons and a daughter.