If you're not sure whether Edit Mode is the right thing, then you need to read about fundamentals like mesh editing, extrusion, selections etc. and build yourself a firm foundation. Learning by doing is hard with the airplane cockpit that is Blender and leads to many road blocks which can be avoided by learning before doing.
And I'd suggest to do some modeling before doing deformation animation. The rig for a helix can become quite complex, depending on the amount of realism.
You wouldn't untwirl your helix actually. You would probably model it straight like a ladder and then rig it. After that, you would pre-twirl it and, in the animation, undo the twirling.
Since I don't know the style you're after, proposing a solution is hard to do. Ideally you wouldn't want the rungs to distort while twirling. Keeping the two helixes, the rung and the connections between them separate objects might be the easiest way. You might even avoid Edit Mode that way.
Here's the relatively easy way to do it:
- Model this shape. It is a simple T-shape done with extrusion. It has its object center smack in the middle of the right opening, that's crucial. I did it by scaling the default cube to zero on the x axis, removing doubles and deleting the face while keeping the edges and verts, then extruded from here.
The edge ring near the vertical part will help the rung to keep its shape.
The 3 ends are open, they don't have a face. After that, I selected everything and recalculated the normals.
That's it, modeling done.
give it a Mirror Modifier
give it an Array Modifier
Give it a Simple Deform Modifier
Give it a Subsurf Modifier
Pictures follow in a minute