MIRACLE ON HORTENSE STREET A TRIP TO THE CHIROPRACTOR, AND SHE'S A NEW KID.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

The day Pam Flynn hurt her knee was the best day of Helen Bibb's life, say the neighbors on Hortense Street in North Hollywood.

That mishap launched a journey for Bibb's daughter Laura, a 10-year-old, developmentally delayed girl, who went from being the neighborhood pity to the neighborhood Rocky.

All because Pam Flynn hurt her knee and went to see a chiropractor - starting a chain of events that neighbors now call the miracle on Hortense Street.

It's one of those quiet, tree-lined residential blocks where people move in and stay a lifetime - where neighbors know more about each other than their names and what kind of cars they drive.

They know their personal lives - the good and the bad.

Pam Flynn and neighbors Tracy Johnson and Elaine Alexander have shared many cups of morning coffee with Helen Bibb.

And over the years, they've heard how Helen's daughter, Laura, was diagnosed as a baby as being mildly mentally retarded. And that when it came time for her to start school, her skills and test scores placed her at the severely retarded level.

They've learned that Helen and her husband, Ron, never stopped fighting for their daughter, that Helen spent half her life on the Internet looking for the answers to why Laura's body was also betraying her.

Why she kept falling down, or would start to binge-eat and refuse to talk to even her family for long stretches of time.

The Internet didn't give Helen the answers, and neither did her doctors, who vowed that everything medical science had to offer - inside the confines of an HMO plan - was being done to help her daughter.

``I was on the diagnosis merry-go-round, going nowhere,'' Helen says. ``There were plenty of explanations and excuses, but no answers.''

The latest setback came earlier this year when Laura began to suffer from swollen knees that were diagnosed as severe growing pains.

``She had orthotics put in her shoes, but her knees were still swollen and getting worse,'' Helen said. ``Her right leg and foot were starting to turn in. The orthopedic doctors suggested knee braces and painkillers.''

From behind their windows on Hortense Street - their hearts breaking - the neighbors watched the slow deterioration of this little girl they had known since birth - now barely able to walk down the street without falling down on the sidewalk.

``We had all watched her grow up, and to see her in pain, falling down like this, well, it was heartbreaking,'' said neighbor Tracy Johnson.

There was nothing they could do but give the Bibb family moral support. They weren't doctors.

Then one day, Pam Flynn wrenched her knee, and went to see Toluca Lake chiropractor King Rollins.

While she was being treated, she mentioned her 10-year-old neighbor who was falling down all the time, and would soon need braces and a steady diet of painkillers just to get around.

``The idea of this wonderful little girl who had already been through so much, now needing braces to walk really threw me,'' Pam said.

When she got home later that day, Pam knocked on her next-door neighbor's door and told Helen about Rollins, and that he also treated kids.

``Go see him,'' Pam said. ``What could it hurt?''

He's not a miracle worker, King Rollins says. What he did for Laura, he has done for other children, but not with such dramatic effect.

``I was looking for anything that would interfere with Laura's nervous system, and I found a vertebra at the base of her skull was way out of place and putting pressure on her nerves,'' he said. ``So I adjusted it.''

So simple, Helen said. An adjustment. Not braces and painkillers.

``The first thing Laura did was let out a big sigh of relief,'' Helen said. ``That night she came down the stairs by herself.

``We were stunned. This used to take forever with Laura holding on to both rails, her dad in front so she wouldn't fall, and me guiding from behind.

``Laura now wants to move and run and be a real kid for the first time. All the doctors said that her foot would stay turned in and there was nothing they could do. Well, her foot has straightened out, too.''

And this summer, her daughter did something Helen, in her most optimistic dreams, never would have thought possible.

With her mom and dad, younger sister Julie, and older brother Edward cheering her on and bursting with pride, Laura swam with the dolphins at Sea World.

``She's an entirely different little girl, mentally as well as physically,'' says neighbor Elaine Alexander. ``She used to be shy and hide behind her mother. Now, she's in the open, talking.

``When we'd walk the dogs, Laura couldn't keep up. Now, she's out front. It's been a remarkable transformation.''

Miracle or simply an adjustment, Ron and Helen Bibb are feeling like the luckiest people in the world, seeing their daughter smiling and happy.

``Look at her - she's so proud of herself,'' Helen said recently, watching Laura help Pam and Harry Flynn walk their dogs down Hortense Street.

The little girl who used to be the neighborhood pity, now the neighborhood Rocky - leading the pack.

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Photo:

(color) Laura Bibb, 10, center, walks her dog Benjie with, from left, sister Jessie Bibb, 5, and neighbors Pam Flynn, Harry Flynn and Salvador Johnson, 8.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer