An 18-month-old Arizona boy was left in a hospital morgue for roughly five hours after a doctor declared him dead — except the child was still breathing, and two police officers had repeatedly flagged signs of life before the doctor told them to back off. This is what happens when institutional authority stamps out common sense, and the most vulnerable pay the price.
First responders rushed to a Gilbert, Arizona home on February 8 after a reported drowning, according to police records. The toddler had been pulled from a backyard pool. Emergency crews performed life-saving measures and transported him to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, where staff pronounced him dead about an hour later. But two Gilbert police officers observed possible signs of life — multiple times — and tried to raise the alarm. Dr. Aryan Toosi wasn't having it. "Please do your thing and let me do my thing," Toosi told one officer, per the police report. "I went to medical school for a reason."
That credentialism nearly cost a child his life. The boy was placed in the hospital's so-called "cold room" — a space that serves as a morgue. Roughly five hours passed before a team from the medical examiner's office arrived, found the child breathing, and rushed him to another hospital. The boy survived. He has since been released. A GoFundMe page says the toddler, identified as Vincent, will need extensive therapy.
Mercy Gilbert Medical Center issued a statement calling it "a heartbreaking situation" and said it conducted "a thorough review of all aspects of the care provided to learn what happened and to make meaningful changes to strengthen our care." The hospital declined to release further details. Toosi's attorney, Scott Holden, told the AP there is "much more to this case, both factually and medically, than has been reported thus far."
Gilbert police, meanwhile, are recommending negligence charges against the parents, citing a strong odor of marijuana at the home and open doors that could have allowed unsupervised access to the pool. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office said it is reviewing the case. The Guardian reported all of these details; the Boston Herald and Boston.com, which covered a separate story about a Cambridge shooting and ShotSpotter technology, did not report on the Arizona case.
Two institutions now face accountability questions: the hospital that declared a living child dead and stashed him in a cold room, and the police department whose officers saw what the doctor refused to acknowledge — but couldn't override the white coat. The parents may face charges. Whether the doctor or the hospital will face any remains an open question.
A toddler spent five hours alone in a morgue, breathing, because a doctor's credentials silenced the people who noticed he was alive. The credentialism is the story — and the system that enforces it still hasn't answered for what it nearly did.
