‘We’re not friends, we’re blood brothers’: Hero handyman gives the gift of live during pandemic
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - Dan Reynolds definitely gets the "Handyman of the Year" award. The Montgomery County man gave the gift of life, donating a kidney to someone he did work handy work for and soon befriended. Now the man Reynolds donated to tells FOX 5, "We’re not friends, we’re blood brothers."
FOX 5 first talked with Reynolds and Mary Antonelli three months ago. Mary’s husband and kidney recipient, Anthony "Tony" Antonelli, was still in the hospital recovering from the transplant. Around three months later, FOX 5 finally got to meet Tony and Dan together. Both looked great!
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"The doctor said it’s a beautiful kidney, the kidney of a 19-year-old," said Tony Antonelli. "Yeah – and they gave him my worse one!" joked Dan Reynolds.
The two tell us they go for walks almost every other day and then sit to chat about life.
It was back in October 2020 when Dan Reynolds, an area handyman says, while doing job for Antonelli at his North Potomac – Gaithersburg-area home, Reynolds noticed Antonelli looked sick. The Montgomery County dad and grandfather says he was on dialysis at the time, after the kidney his wife had donated to him about four years back, began to fail.
"You know your time is somewhat limited if you’re on dialysis. I had my sister go through pass away," said Antonelli.
It was a trying time for the family not knowing if they would be able to find another donor or match as people were hunkered-down in the Coronavirus Pandemic. Many surgeries had slowed down.
"All of sudden he says, ‘What’s your blood type?" said Antonelli recounting his October 2020 conversation with Reynolds, "I said, ‘Well I’m A positive.’ ‘I’m A positive.’ And the next words are, ‘I’d be proud to give you my kidneys."
"You could’ve picked me off the floor," said Antonelli.
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"At the time, when all this was going down. I had a feeling, a sense of urgency to get it done because I didn’t want Tony to feel any worse than he already felt," said Reynolds.
They two say there were so many tests. They did not know if this would work. Then they got a February 23rd surgery date.
It was still a delicate process, Antonelli taking longer to be released from the hospital. Now some three months out, Antonelli said he’s down from multiple dialysis visits a week, to just one weekly check-in for bloodwork that will soon drop to once-a-month.
Reynolds is back working, with even more customers who saw his selfless act on the news.
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"I’ve been blessed, no doubt about it. I mean I have 3 children, blessed with 13 grandchildren and now I get to see them grow up," said Antonelli, who told FOX 5 he is both grateful and humbled.
Reynolds, who still says he would do it again, told FOX 5 on Wednesday, "Pass it on. Just pass it on to somebody else you know, and um, pay it forward."
"Just be nice and let it just expand everywhere. Just let it expend through everybody and everybody be nice to everybody. Maybe someday we’ll get there," he added.
The two thanked everyone for their kind donations, the community for its support and the George Washington University Hospital staff for all of their hard work.