Peril Can Be Inspiring : Mt. Baldy Ordeal Gives Rescued Woman a Goal

ANAHEIM —  Cynthia Moyneur knows what it’s like to be rescued. Now she’d like to return the favor.

Moyneur, 38, of Anaheim is expected to graduate today from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy as a reserve deputy sheriff--the first phase of a long training program for people who want to qualify as members of search-and-rescue teams, the very kind of people who saved Moyneur’s life in 1991 after she became stranded on Mt. Baldy.

That’s what inspired her to become one of them.

“All these people were volunteers--they gave their time and risked their lives to save lives,” she said. “What a wonderful thing to do.”

And, she added, “I wanted to repay the debt.”

Moyneur and then-11-year-old Ryan McIntosh, her boyfriend’s nephew, had to be rescued in December, 1991, after they got trapped in a sudden snowstorm on Mt. Baldy. They spent two days in subzero weather.

Volunteer rescue teams from Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties went into action. The 60-odd searchers persisted through the weekend, and when the Sierra Madre Rescue Team found the two survivors, the rescue made news throughout the region.

The effort to find them “inspired (Moyneur) so much that she wanted to be a part of them,” said her father, Raymond, noting that his daughter is a runner, cyclist and hiker. “She’s always been outdoorsy anyway,” he said.

Cynthia Moyneur, like young Ryan, suffered severe frostbite and hypothermia. She lost the tip of her big toe to frostbite and spent six months recovering.

Moyneur went back to her job as a physical therapist at the Sequoia Athletic Club in Buena Park. There she met one of her rescuers by accident.

Rick Buhite, a member of the San Dimas Rescue Team, which had participated in the search, came in with a muscle injury. When Moyneur asked him how he received the injury, he said it was from rescue training with the Sheriff’s Academy.

“He didn’t know it was me,” Moyneur recalled. “I asked him, ‘You wouldn’t happen to remember when a woman and child got lost on Mt. Baldy?’ and he said, ‘I sure do.’ ”

Buhite recalled: “She held out her hand and said, ‘I want to thank you.’ ”

Moyneur said that coincidence was a turning point for her. She asked Buhite about the program and its requirements.

Then, last November, after she had recovered from toe surgery and felt ready to train, she applied to and entered the Sheriff’s Academy.

Most would-be volunteer rescuers are required to train as reserve sheriff’s deputies, going on patrol shifts once every four to six weeks, said Moyneur. Three of her graduating class of 52 trained specifically to go on as members of search-and-rescue teams, and will patrol mountain trails.

Moyneur, a fit, slender athlete, is one of a few women now in training with the San Dimas Rescue Team. She had trained more than 20 hours a week in Saugus and Whittier for the 13 weeks at the academy.

The rescue program requires toughness and agility, and not everyone who wants to be a volunteer rescuer can handle the rigors, Moyneur said.

Moreover, Moyneur has to take especial caution when dealing with freezing temperatures, because “once you’ve had frostbite, you’re more susceptible to it thereafter,” she said. “I just need to watch the temperatures.”

She was relieved to find that losing the tip of her left toe didn’t affect her ability to climb walls, run obstacle courses and drag dummies in training.

The 20-odd San Dimas team members will complete another year of training--learning to rappel off walls and out of helicopters, tying knots, and learning outdoor survival and emergency techniques. They will train about three days a week. Then, after a six-month probationary period, Moyneur will finally receive a beeper used to page volunteer rescuers.

Moyneur said she intends to follow in the footsteps of the rescuers who saved her and Ryan. “I want to be there,” she said. “I want to feel it.”

Smiling at the irony, she added: “I’ll be on Mt. Baldy again.”