Arizona boy found breathing after being pronounced dead at hospital

A Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office transporter found an 18-month-old boy breathing more than five hours after he had been pronounced dead at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, turning a drowning response in Gilbert, Arizona, into a case now under review by police, prosecutors and the hospital.

First responders were dispatched about 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 8, 2026, to a home in Gilbert, a Phoenix suburb, after a drowning at a Super Bowl gathering. Police records show the child had been pulled face-down from an in-ground pool and taken to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, where a doctor identified in the records as Aryan Toosi, an Arizona-licensed osteopathic physician, pronounced him dead at 6:20 p.m.

Gilbert police documented multiple moments in which two officers believed the boy may still have been alive. One officer heard a nurse say, “I have a pulse,” before the death declaration, and officers recorded repeated observations that the child appeared to be gasping. The child’s parents and the officers at the hospital questioned whether he was still breathing after he was pronounced dead.

About five hours later, a transporter from the county medical examiner’s office entered the hospital’s so-called cold room, which serves as the morgue, and found the boy breathing. He was rushed to another hospital and ultimately survived before later being released.

The Gilbert Police Department is 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. Maricopa County Attorney’s Office officials are reviewing the case and declined further comment.

Mercy Gilbert Medical Center carried out “a thorough review of all aspects of the care provided to learn what happened and to make meaningful changes to strengthen our care,” calling the episode “a heartbreaking situation.” Scott Holden, an attorney for Toosi, said there is “much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far.”