Newly released 911 audio captures the frantic moments after a woman discovered former NFL defensive lineman Josh Mauro dead inside his Phoenix home, revealing her desperate plea for emergency help as she realized the severity of the situation.
The call, obtained by the California Post on Wednesday, was placed at around noon on April 23. The woman, who told dispatchers she had just met Mauro through work, found the 33-year-old unresponsive on the floor after waking from an upstairs bedroom where she and a friend had been sleeping.
“I need an ambulance now,” she told the dispatcher in the audio.
She explained that the three of them had been up late partying the night before, but Mauro was alive when she went to bed. The discovery came as a shock when she came downstairs.
“Me and my friend are upstairs asleep and I woke up and he’s downstairs on the floor,” she said in the harrowing call. “And he’s blue. He’s blue.”
When asked whether Mauro had been using drugs, she told the dispatcher, “we were drinking last night but that’s it,” She added that she was not sure if he had been battling any health problems, noting they had only recently “met him at work.”
The woman’s distress escalated as she described what she saw. “His lips are blue,” she added. “He’s gone.”
First responders arrived shortly after the call, but could not revive Mauro. A Phoenix Police Department case report detailed what investigators found at the scene: the former New York Giant deceased with “a white powdery substance” and a “rolled up dollar bill next to the powder” near his body. They also located a “bottle cap with white substance in it” as well as a syringe in a trash can inside the home, according to the report.
The PPD documents revealed additional context from others present. At least one of the women at the house told officers that Mauro had been “on a bender for four days” leading up to his death.
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s findings brought official clarity to the cause. The office ruled that Mauro had traces of “fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol, and their metabolites as well as cannabinoids and caffeine” in his system, and deemed his death to be an accidental overdose.
Mauro’s NFL career spanned from 2014 to 2021, with stints on the Arizona Cardinals, New York Giants and Oakland Raiders. The Texas native and former Stanford player carved out a seven-year run as a rotational defensive end, appearing in 83 career games and recording 3.5 sacks.
His death adds to a growing toll of former NFL players lost to the opioid epidemic and accidental drug overdoses, though the league has expanded mental health and substance abuse resources for current and retired players in recent years.
The April 23 incident began as a late night of drinking among new acquaintances and ended with a 911 call that could not change the outcome. The woman who found Mauro stayed on the line, relaying what she saw, until help arrived too late.