Vincent Fiordilino is home with his family. Nearly nine months ago, a doctor in Gilbert, Arizona, told his parents the 18-month-old was dead. He wasn’t. Vincent survived, but his mother and the family’s attorney say he now has a severe brain injury.
It began Feb. 8, Super Bowl Sunday. The family was hosting a party at their house. His mother, Alexus Fiordilino, walked out back and found Vincent floating face down in the swimming pool. His father, Angelo, started CPR while relatives called 911.
First responders rushed the boy to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center. He arrived at the emergency room around 6:04 p.m. Hospital staff kept trying to bring him back. At 6:20 p.m., Dr. Aryan Toosi pronounced him dead after talking with his parents.
Alexus, 30, says the doctor told them Vincent’s blood pH was too far off for him to survive. She says they were told more treatment would not lead to a real recovery. She and her husband agreed to stop. They believed the doctors had done everything they could. “Infuriated. I feel like I was grossly misled,” she said in an interview published Oct. 23.
When the family hugged Vincent goodbye, some relatives wondered if he was still breathing. Alexus says hospital staff told them it was agonal breathing, the kind of gasping that can happen when someone is dying. Police records also noted apparent gasps after Vincent was pronounced dead.
Vincent was taken to a cold room at the hospital to wait for the medical examiner. More than five hours after he was declared dead, a transporter from the medical examiner’s office showed up. The transporter saw that the boy was still breathing. The family got a call, and Vincent was sent to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
“My husband and I just screamed in relief,” Alexus said. “We were praising the Lord. We were crying. To go from hearing he was gone and then finding out he isn’t gone, it’s an unexplainable feeling.”
Being alive did not mean being okay. Vincent is home now, but the family’s attorney, John Brewer, says he is severely brain-injured and will need care for the rest of his life. Alexus says her son is getting better, though the road is not simple.
The family is thinking about legal action against Dr. Toosi and Dignity Health, which runs Mercy Gilbert Medical Center. Toosi’s attorney, Scott Holden, said the doctor’s thoughts are with Vincent and his family and that he wishes the boy continued healing. Holden would not talk about the care itself, citing the pending legal matter and patient privacy laws. Dignity Health called the case “heartbreaking” and said patient safety is its top priority. It also declined to discuss details.
Questions have followed the family, too. Gilbert police recommended child abuse charges against Vincent’s parents. Police records say the parents admitted using marijuana earlier that day. In July, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office decided not to charge them, saying the evidence did not meet the standard needed for a conviction.
Police also passed information about the hospital’s handling of Vincent to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. That office had not decided whether to take it up. Police said their own investigation did not find probable cause for a crime by medical staff. A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with expenses.
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