At around 6:20 p.m. Feb. 8, it looked like a child who was found in a backyard pool in suburban Phoenix, Ariz., had died. Then, just a few hours later, the child showed signs of life.
The child is now expected to survive, the Gilbert Police Department in Arizona confirmed to Audacy in an email.
Police and fire units were dispatched to the home near the 3000 block of East Arris Drive at around 5:35 p.m. on Feb. 8, the email explained. Emergency responders provided life-saving care on the scene before the child was transported to a local hospital and pronounced deceased.
“Later that evening, just before 11:30 p.m., Gilbert PD was notified that the child showed signs of life and was life-flighted to another valley hospital for further treatment,” the department said. “The child is expected to survive.”
It added that an investigation into the incident is ongoing and that no further information was available as of this Friday. The department did not provide the child’s gender or name.
This incident comes less than a year after another drowning incident in Gilbert. Last June, a two-year-old was pronounced dead after a drowning incident, even after first responders provided life-saving measures.
Nationwide, drowning is the top cause of death for children ages 1 through 4, according to the American Red Cross. With its high temperatures and dry desert climate, Arizona has some of the most pools in the country – around one pool for every 13 people – per the RubyHome luxury real estate website.
Reporter Micaela Marshall of Arizona’s Family asked Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency medicine physician with decades of experience, whether the child could have been in the morgue after they were pronounced dead. He said that scenario is unlikely.
“It’s hard to believe that they were pronounced dead and then sent to the morgue and hours later they awoke,” LoVecchio said. “Maybe – never say never in medicine, never say never and never say always, right.”
Audacy has reported on one alleged incident of a person waking up alive in the morgue, though not in the U.S. In Shanghai, China, an elderly man was reportedly caught on camera shocking morgue worker’s when the realized he was alive.
Though 16-year-old Sammy Berko wasn’t taken to the morgue, he was declared dead after going limp at the top of a rock-climbing wall in Missouri City, Texas, in 2023, according to another Audacy report. Then, his mother saw him moving and she realized he was alive. and doctors later found that Berko has a rare genetic condition.
Regarding the Gilbert case, LoVecchio said he believes the child “was likely very cold after being pulled from the water, possibly making the pulse too faint to detect,” Arizona’s Family reported. He also said he thinks “something’s missing from the story,” and that declaring a child dead should be taken very seriously, with all potential signs of life accounted for.
LoVecchio also noted that even minutes without oxygen can impact brain function, something that was also a concern in the Berko case, though the 16-year-old dealt with only short-term memory loss through months of recovery from his incident.
LoVecchio said the child who survived the Gilbert pool incident could grow up without serious health issues, “given that not all the facts are known,” per the Arizona’s Family report.
