Girl Raises Awareness, Funds for Hospital

She’s had the ear of high-powered executives, spoken at crowded benefits, handed out Hershey’s chocolate kisses to sick children--and has even influenced the first lady.

Whenever Childrens Hospital Los Angeles calls, 14-year-old Daniella Fortuna is there.

“Whenever I help the hospital,” she said, “it makes me stronger and gives me a feeling that I’ve done something good.”

As a volunteer child spokesperson, or “little ambassador,” as hospital administrators like to say, Daniella, a ninth-grader at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, helps raise awareness and funds for the medical facility, a leader in pediatric medicine that treats some 200,000 children each year.

“She’s done a lot in her short life,” said her mother, Christina.

Daniella knows all about the miracle workers at Childrens Hospital: Nurses there have lovingly soothed her fears of surgery and doctors have transformed her face--once severely disfigured--into that of a budding actress.

She was born a perfect baby. But a few weeks later, a flat, red splotch appeared on the right side of her face. Her pediatrician at the time was unconcerned. It’s just a birthmark, he said. It will go away.

But soon, the raspberry-colored patch of spongy tissue called a hemangioma grew larger. By age 3, the growth had consumed half of Daniella’s face, blocking vision in her right eye.

Her young parents said they felt lost and confused. Each doctor recommending treatment for Daniella contradicted the last.

“We were devastated,” her mother said.

Then a doctor visiting a friend in the neighborhood had noticed young Daniella playing in front of her family’s Hancock Park apartment.

It was John Reinisch, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at Childrens Hospital. He told Daniella’s parents that her hemangioma growth was one of the most severe he had seen.

“Meeting him,” said Christina, “was a miracle.”

Daniella had her first surgery at age 4. Ten years and seven surgeries later, only a trace of scarring remains from the once massive growth.

“It’s been a long journey,” Daniella said.

If other kids ever laughed or recoiled from her disfigurement, she doesn’t remember. She’s been having too much fun wearing funky hats, dancing in her room to the punk band Green Day and just being a kid.

Daniella’s positive spirit soon got her recognized to represent the hospital for an annual telethon produced by the Children’s Miracle Network, a nonprofit organization founded in 1983 by the Osmond Family Foundation to help raise funds for children’s hospitals.

During the live broadcast, Daniella stole the show.

“She captured everyone’s hearts,” her mother said. “She looked straight into the camera and told everyone to call in. The phone started ringing off the hook.”

That was seven years ago. Since then, she’s been called on countless times by the hospital to tell her simple message to never judge people by the way they look and to never give up hope.

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“Daniella is incredibly valuable to us,” said Machelle Lake, a director for the Children’s Miracle Network at the hospital. “She’s been totally unaffected by her medical history.”

She’s also been unaffected by all her celebrity hobnobbing over the years with the likes of Marie Osmond and football great Steve Young.

Daniella says she cherishes most the two times she’s met Hillary Rodham Clinton. The feeling is apparently mutual.

Proudly stored in Daniella’s scrapbook is a 1997 letter from Clinton herself that reads: “Dear Daniella: Thank you for your special birthday greeting. . . . I am very proud of you. You have been an inspiration to me.”

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please send suggestions on prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail them to valley.news@latimes.com