Arizona toddler declared dead was found alive in the morgue

At 6:20 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, an Arizona toddler was pronounced dead in an emergency room.

At 11:52 p.m., the boy was found breathing in a hospital morgue.

What happened during that nearly six-hour period — and the circumstances that led to the near-drowning of 18-month-old Vincent Lorenzo Fiordilino in a pool — are now under investigation by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

“The child ultimately survived and has been released from the hospital,” the Gilbert Police Department said in a statement.

But the department has also recommended to the county attorney that his parents be charged with child abuse.

The parents, according to a police report obtained by NBC affiliate KPNX of Phoenix, may have not realized their son had wandered off to the pool while the game was on due to “the potential of both parents’ state of mind being impaired by marijuana and/or other mind altering substances.”

“Both admitted to smoking marijuana the morning of the drowning,” the report states.

A spokesperson for the county attorney declined to comment on the case.

Meanwhile, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center confirmed it had conducted its own internal investigation into what it called a “heartbreaking situation.”

But the hospital has not revealed the results of its investigation and declined to answer questions from NBC News concerning whether the doctor who mistakenly pronounced the boy dead remains on staff.

That doctor is identified as A. Toosi in the police report. And when he was questioned by a police officer about his decision to pronounce the boy dead while the child was still gasping for air, the doctor allegedly pulled rank.

“Please do your thing and let me do my thing,” Toosi is quoted as saying in the report. “I went to medical school for a reason.”

A doctor named Aryan Toosi is identified in available reports as being affiliated with that hospital. He referred NBC News to lawyer Scott Holden.

In a statement to NBC News on Friday, the lawyer cited the police report and a potential case against the child’s parents.

“Because of this, as well as patient confidentiality, we are unable to make a full statement at this time other than to assure you that there is much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far,” he said.

Vincent, the toddler, is not identified in the police report by name, but his family has set up a crowdfunding page to help with the medical costs.

“I can’t comment on this right now, but thanks for calling,” a man who answered the phone at the house where Vincent lives said before hanging up.

According to the crowdfunding page, Vincent is breathing with the assistance of a ventilator. He has avoided serious brain damage but will require ongoing medical monitoring and extensive therapy.

The turn of events began around 5:38 p.m. on Feb. 8 with a 911 call for help after the boy was found floating face down in the family pool and a relative tried to revive him by performing CPR, according to the report.

The boy was then rushed to the emergency room at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, where an ER team that included Toosi took over the effort to save him.

At 6:13 p.m., according to the report, Toosi was seen checking the time on “a cell phone with a cheetah print orange and black case” before he went out to deliver bad news to the boy’s parents.

Minutes later, Toosi had words with a Gilbert police officer who appeared to question his diagnosis and then returned to the ER.

“As long as there are no objections, I’d like to call time of death,” Toosi said, according to the report.

Then, “at approximately 18:20 hours, Dr. Toosi called the time of death and requested a moment of silence.”

But the child’s parents and police officers who had been in the ER said in the report that the child still appeared to be gasping for breath after he was declared dead.

Then, at around 7:18 p.m., a detective on the scene reported hearing “another audible gasp” as the ER workers were preparing to move the boy from the trauma room to the “cold room” that serves as the hospital’s morgue and where the temperature is set at 36 to 39 degrees.

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That same detective said that when he returned to photograph the body an hour later he “again observed what appeared to be a gasp or air release.”

“The nurse again stated it was agonal breathing and explained it was due to compressions, oxygen, and possible pressure applied by family members while saying goodbye,” the report states.

And at 7:23 p.m., “the cold room door was closed,” the report states.

More than four hours later, when the medical examiner’s team arrived at 11:52 p.m. to retrieve the boy, “he was found breathing,” the report states.

“The family was notified immediately” and the boy was airlifted to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.