Arizona Toddler Pronounced Dead After Drowning Found Alive in Hospital Morgue Hours Later
On Super Bowl Sunday, a routine evening turned into a nightmare for a Gilbert, Arizona family. At 6:20 p.m., 18-month-old Vincent Lorenzo Fiordilino was pronounced dead in the emergency room of Mercy Gilbert Medical Center after being pulled from a family pool. But by 11:52 p.m., the boy was found breathing in the hospital's morgue, alive.
The startling turn of events has triggered a dual investigation by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and the hospital itself. According to a police report obtained by NBC affiliate KPNX, the toddler's parents—both of whom admitted to smoking marijuana earlier that morning—may not have realized their son wandered to the pool during the Super Bowl game. The Gilbert Police Department has recommended child abuse charges against the parents, citing potential impairment from marijuana or other substances.
“The child ultimately survived and has been released from the hospital,” the Gilbert Police Department said in a statement, without providing further details about his current condition. A crowdfunding page set up by the family says Vincent is breathing with assistance from a ventilator but has avoided serious brain damage, though he will require ongoing medical monitoring and extensive therapy.
At the center of the case is Dr. Aryan Toosi, the emergency room physician who declared the boy dead. According to the police report, a nurse and police officers noticed the child appeared to be gasping for air even after the pronouncement. When a police officer questioned Toosi's diagnosis, the doctor allegedly responded: “Please do your thing and let me do my thing. I went to medical school for a reason.”
The timeline outlined in the report is harrowing: at 6:13 p.m., Toosi was seen checking the time on a cell phone with a cheetah-print orange and black case before delivering the news to the parents. Minutes later, after a brief confrontation with a Gilbert police officer, he returned to the ER. “As long as there are no objections, I'd like to call time of death,” Toosi said, and at 6:20 p.m., he requested a moment of silence.
But the child continued to show signs of life. At 7:18 p.m., a detective on the scene reported hearing “another audible gasp” as staff prepared to move the boy to the cold room—a morgue kept at 36 to 39 degrees. The detective later returned to photograph the body and “again observed what appeared to be a gasp or air release.” A nurse dismissed it as agonal breathing, a reflex often mistaken for breathing after resuscitation efforts.
More than four hours later, when the medical examiner's team arrived at 11:52 p.m. to retrieve the body, they found the boy breathing. He was immediately airlifted to Phoenix Children's Hospital.
Mercy Gilbert Medical Center confirmed it had conducted its own internal investigation into what it called a “heartbreaking situation,” but has not disclosed the results or whether Dr. Toosi remains on staff. Toosi's attorney, Scott Holden, declined to comment fully, citing patient confidentiality and a pending case against the parents. “There is much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far,” Holden said in a statement.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has not commented on the investigation. Meanwhile, the case has raised broader questions about hospital protocols for declaring death, particularly in pediatric drowning cases, and the potential role of substance use in parental supervision. Experts note that “agonal breathing” can persist after cardiac arrest and may be mistaken for signs of life, highlighting the need for more rigorous verification procedures in emergency rooms.
For now, Vincent's family is focused on his recovery. A man who answered the phone at the family's home declined to comment, saying only, “I can't comment on this right now, but thanks for calling,” before hanging up.