Arizona Boy Found Breathing in Hospital Morgue After Being Declared Dead

GILBERT, AZ — An 18-month-old Arizona boy pronounced dead at a hospital emergency room on Super Bowl Sunday was found breathing nearly six hours later in the facility’s cold storage room, according to a recently released police report from the Gilbert Police Department.

The case involving Vincent Lorenzo Fiordilino has drawn national attention on two separate fronts. Gilbert police have submitted a recommendation to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office that Vincent’s parents face felony child abuse charges, alleging negligent supervision while impaired by marijuana. At the same time, questions about the conduct of the emergency room physician who declared Vincent dead — even as officers and family members reported seeing signs of life — remain unresolved. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office confirmed it is reviewing the case. As of early July, no charges have been filed against anyone.

The chain of events began at approximately 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 8, when two relatives called 911 to report that Vincent had been pulled from the face-down position in an in-ground backyard pool at a Gilbert residence where family and friends had gathered to watch the Super Bowl. Relatives attempted CPR before first responders arrived and took over life-saving measures. Vincent was transported to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. by Dr. Aryan Toosi, a physician identified in the police report and listed in available records as affiliated with the hospital through the Arizona Osteopathic Board. Shortly before Toosi called the time of death, one of two Gilbert police officers present in the emergency room reported hearing a nurse say, “I have a pulse.” When that officer brought the remark to the doctor’s attention, Toosi allegedly dismissed the concern. “Please do your thing and let me do my thing,” Toosi told the officer, according to the police report. “I went to medical school for a reason.” Toosi then requested a final pulse check and, with no one objecting aloud, formally called the time of death and asked for a moment of silence.

Both officers present in the emergency room documented concerns about Vincent’s condition in their reports. One officer noted hearing an “audible gasp” as hospital staff prepared to move the boy from the trauma room to the cold room, a refrigerated space maintained at 36 to 39 degrees Fahrenheit that serves as the hospital’s morgue. When that officer returned to photograph the room roughly an hour later, he again observed what appeared to be a gasp. Hospital staff attributed both instances to agonal breathing — involuntary muscle movements and air release that can occur after death. Vincent’s parents, while saying goodbye to their son in the emergency room, also told police they believed he was still breathing based on his appearance. The cold room door was closed at approximately 7:23 p.m. More than four hours passed. At 11:52 p.m., when a transport team from the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office arrived to retrieve Vincent’s body, they found him breathing. The family was immediately notified. Vincent was airlifted to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where he received treatment. He has since been released from the hospital.

According to the GoFundMe page created by Vincent’s family in February to help with medical costs, his kidneys, lungs, and liver began shutting down after his arrival at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. An MRI initially flagged two small areas of potential brain damage, but later testing found no brain damage. The family’s fundraising page describes Vincent as a “miracle baby” and notes that he will require extensive therapy and ongoing medical monitoring. “A little after 11:30 p.m., the family received a call no one expected: the medical examiner had detected a faint heartbeat,” the fundraiser states. Medical experts not connected to the case have noted that mistaken death declarations are rare but documented. Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said the criteria for declaring death require the absence of a heartbeat, breathing, and brain or neurological activity. “It tends to be much more common in elderly people than in children or toddlers,” Melinek said. She added that shallow or intermittent breathing can complicate the determination and that the standard of care can vary by hospital policy and individual physician training. “It’s either someone inexperienced got involved or a policy failure,” Melinek said. “Because people, once they’re dead, they don’t come back to life — that doesn’t happen.” A separate medical review has noted that spontaneous return of circulation after CPR is stopped — sometimes called Lazarus syndrome — has been documented in roughly 65 cases over nearly four decades worldwide.

The 157-page police report focuses heavily on the circumstances leading up to Vincent’s near-drowning. Investigators allege that both of Vincent’s parents admitted to smoking marijuana on the morning of Feb. 8, and that the pool area was accessible because garage doors were not properly secured. Multiple adults were present in the home during the Super Bowl gathering. According to the report, each adult present “collectively stated that each believed another adult was watching” Vincent, leaving no single person actively supervising the child at the time he reached the pool. Gilbert police submitted their recommendation for felony child abuse charges to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office based on these findings. A spokesperson for the county attorney’s office confirmed the case remains under review and declined to comment further. No charging decision has been announced. Police did not recommend criminal charges against Dr. Toosi. Online records show that a Dr. Aryan Toosi, D.O., holds a license through the Arizona Osteopathic Board. Attorney Scott Holden, representing Toosi, said his client would not be making a full statement at this time. “There is much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far,” Holden said in a statement to multiple news outlets, citing patient confidentiality and the active investigation into the parents.

Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, operated by Dignity Health, released a statement calling the incident “a heartbreaking situation” and confirming that it conducted an internal review. “We immediately conducted a thorough review of all aspects of the care that was provided to learn what happened and to make meaningful changes to strengthen our care,” a hospital spokesperson said. The hospital declined to answer questions about whether Toosi remains on staff and said it could not share further details out of respect for the patient’s privacy. The hospital added that it continues to work with the family and their representative. The case is not without precedent in the broader national context. In 2020, Timesha Beauchamp, a 20-year-old woman with cerebral palsy in Southfield, Michigan, was declared dead by a physician over the phone after paramedics responded to a 911 call at her home. A funeral home later found Beauchamp gasping for air inside a body bag. She was rushed to a hospital but never recovered and died two months later. The city of Southfield subsequently settled a negligence lawsuit filed by Beauchamp’s family for $3.25 million.

Vincent Fiordilino has been released from Phoenix Children’s Hospital and, according to his family’s GoFundMe page, has made significant strides in recovery, though he is expected to need physical therapy and continued medical support. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has not set a public timeline for its charging decision regarding Vincent’s parents. Mercy Gilbert Medical Center has not publicly disclosed the results of its internal review. Dr. Toosi has not spoken publicly about the incident, and his attorney has indicated no further statement is forthcoming while the investigation remains active.