At 6:20 p.m.on Super Bowl Sunday, an Arizona toddler was pronounced dead in an emergency room.Limited time: Save 25% on NBC News subscriptionGet exclusive reporting, live Q&As and ad-free reading.At 11:52 p.m.
that same day, 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 city of 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 local NBC affiliate KPNX, may have not realized their son had wandered off to the pool while the game was on due to “the potential of both parent’s 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 probe 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 he 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 hospit...