The mother of a toddler found alive in an Arizona hospital morgue in February more than five hours after he was pronounced dead said Wednesday she thought she heard him breathing when she hugged him goodbye.

But instead of listening to her gut, Alexus Fiordilino said, she believed the doctor who told her those were 18-month-old Vincent’s last gasps and that any further attempts to save him would just prolong his agony.

“As a mom you don’t want to hear that,” Fiordilino, 30, said in an interview. “I didn’t want him to suffer. It seemed to be they’d done everything they could. And then he called it.”

Fiordilino was referring to Dr. Aryan Toosi, who pronounced Vincent dead at 6:20 p.m.…