North Jersey boy sets Guinness record while spreading the word on childhood kidney disease

When he was a preschooler, Dashel Prywes would play for hours with magnetic building tiles at his grandmother’s house, stacking them up until they all came crashing down.

Earlier this month, Dashel, now a seventh grader at Tenafly Middle School, used more than 2,600 of those tiles to set a Guinness World Record — building a tower that reached more than 50 feet before it tumbled to the ground.

The 12-year-old from Tenafly wanted to set the record for the tallest Magna-Tiles tower to bring attention to childhood chronic kidney disease, a condition he was diagnosed with at the age of 5.

He built the tower in front of a crowd of his friends, family and teachers at Goat Climbing Gym in Hackensack — the only place in the area with tall enough ceilings for him to attempt the feat.

“I was so excited to break the record,” Dashel said. “It was really a group effort. At the start, we had all of the kids line up and place a tile at the base of the tower.”

It was Dashel’s mother, Michal, who came up with the idea to go for the record when Dashel built a structure in their home that reached the ceiling of their basement.

The family started asking around for donations of the tiles and built structures in their backyard that reached as high as 12 feet, using a stepladder. Another structure, this time in the front yard, reached 16 feet.

“We learned a few things about what designs were more stable than others,” said Yaron Prywes, Dashel’s father.

On Valentine’s Day, Tenafly Middle School allowed Dashel to build in its auditorium, where he completed a 22-foot tower. Since there was no building in Tenafly with higher ceilings, the family started looking for another place to build. That’s when they turned to Goat Climbing Gym with its 60-foot climbing walls.

Because there was no previous Guinness World Record for building with magnetic tiles, Dashel applied to Guinness, and the company set a mark of 15 meters, or 49.2 feet, that he would have to reach.

Through a website and word of mouth, Dashel gathered hundreds of tiles through donations. Eventually, Magna-Tiles, the company that makes the kind of tile Dashel used for the record, heard about his quest and donated 2,000 more.

Dashel used primarily 6-inch tiles for the design of the three-level tower. After the building reached about 6 feet, the parents used ladders to reach the top. At 12 feet high, the crowd moved to the mezzanine to watch the process and workers at the climbing gym used lifts to complete the tower, following Dashel’s design.

When two levels of the structure were complete, it reached 50 feet, 8 inches. “We thought, let’s keep going,” Yaron said.

The workers started to build the “antenna” part of the building, and that’s when the whole thing fell to the ground.

“It was very loud,” Michal said. “Our middle son was livestreaming the event and he ducked under a table.”

Childhood kidney disease is so rare that there’s not much data on how many kids are affected by it, Michal said.

Dashel becomes tired easily, his skin gets itchy, and he struggles with brain fog because his kidneys aren’t filtering his blood properly. He was diagnosed through a random blood test.

Now that the event is complete, the family has sent Guinness the evidence — photos, videos, witness accounts — for the company to evaluate the record’s credibility. It will likely be about three months before they hear that the record is official, Yaron said.

“It’s been a real joy for us to have something really positive to look forward to and plan and achieve with the help of our friends and family and community,” Michal said. “It shows that even though an obstacle seems insurmountable, overcoming this obstacle gives us hope as we combat childhood kidney disease.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey boy sets Guinness record while spreading the word on childhood kidney disease