![\"Mercy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mercy-gilbert-medical-center-O2NPESBAWRHJFIG2WENKMGEOJQ.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA toddler discovered in a backyard pool in a Phoenix suburb was declared dead before being found breathing hours later in a room that serves as the hospital morgue, according to recently released police records.<\/p>\n
Two Gilbert police officers saw possible signs of life multiple times, but the child was still taken to the hospital’s \u201ccold room\u201d after being treated by staff, according to the documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease do your thing and let me do my thing,\u201d Dr Aryan Toosi told an officer at one point, according to the report. \u201cI went to medical school for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
First responders were dispatched to the home at about 5:30pm on February 8 in response to a reported drowning. They performed life-saving measures on the child before taking him to a hospital where the boy was pronounced dead about an hour later.<\/p>\n
About five hours later, police were notified that the child was indeed breathing, and he was flown to another hospital. The boy ultimately survived and has been released.<\/p>\n
Boy survived but his parents are under scrutiny<\/p>\n
Gilbert police are recommending negligence charges against the parents. Investigators said there was a strong odor of marijuana at the home and open doors that could have allowed unsupervised access to the pool. The Maricopa County Attorney\u2019s Office said it was reviewing the case and declined further comment Monday.<\/p>\n
In 911 calls, two relatives frantically reported that the child had been pulled from the pool as people at the scene could be heard shrieking. One caller reported the toddler was unconscious.<\/p>\n
No one answered at the home where the near-drowning occurred when an Associated Press photographer knocked there Monday.<\/p>\n
Mercy Gilbert Medical Centre, where the 18-month-old was taken, said in a statement that the hospital conducted \u201ca thorough review of all aspects of the care provided to learn what happened and to make meaningful changes to strengthen our care.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hospital called it \u201ca heartbreaking situation\u201d and declined to release further details.<\/p>\n
When a team from the local medical examiner’s office arrived in the so-called cold room, they found the boy breathing and rushed him to another hospital, police said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mercy Gilbert Medical Center. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Doctor’s lawyer says there’s more to know<\/p>\n
Scott Holden, an attorney for Toosi, told the AP that he wouldn’t make a full statement on behalf of the doctor \u201cother than to assure you that there is much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far\u201d.<\/p>\n
A GoFundMe page, which was created in February to help the boy’s family with medical bills, said the toddler would need extensive therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for your prayers, your kindness, and your support for baby Vincent \u2014 our miracle fighter,\u201d the page says.<\/p>\n
An ABC affiliate in Phoenix, KNXV-TV, was the first to report the story.<\/p>\n
There have been other cases of people discovered alive after being declared dead. In Southfield, Michigan, Timesha Beauchamp, a 20-year-old with cerebral palsy, was declared dead by a doctor over the phone in 2020. City paramedics had responded to a 911 call at her family\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
Later that day, a funeral home opened the body bag and found Beauchamp gasping for air. She was swiftly taken to a hospital but never recovered and died two months later. Southfield settled a negligence lawsuit filed by the family for $3.25 million.<\/p>\n
Mistaken death declarations are rare but do happen<\/p>\n
Cases in which someone is mistakenly declared dead and later found to be alive are rare, but they do happen, said Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco who is not associated with the case. \u201cIt tends to be much more common in elderly people than in children or toddlers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe criteria of death require no heartbeat, no breathing, and no brain activity or neurologic activity,\u201d Melinek said. There were times when people were breathing very shallowly or intermittently, so medical practitioners had to wait a few minutes before the declaration, she added.<\/p>\n
According to Melinek, determining death depends on a doctor\u2019s skill and training, and policies may differ from hospital to hospital. \u201cIt\u2019s either someone inexperienced got involved or a policy failure,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause people, once they\u2019re dead, they don\u2019t come back to life \u2014 that doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A toddler discovered in a backyard pool in a Phoenix suburb was declared dead before being found breathing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-514692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}