(AP) - A U.S. military official says a one-time Stamford resident reportedly killed in Iraq is actually alive and well.

Army spokeswoman Shari Lawrence says 26-year-old Specialist Gabriel Maldonado is currently in Iraq with a unit from Fort Stewart in Georgia. She says reports of his death were a hoax.

The mystery arose last week, when the Glenbrook Fire Department in Stamford received a call saying one of its former volunteers was killed in action. Firefighters believed the caller was the soldier's mother.

Lawrence says the firefighter who took the call wrongly remembered the soldier's name as Gabrielle Costello. Military officials at the time said they could not verify that a person by that name was in the Army or had been killed in Iraq.

Fire officials checked their records and found that the former volunteer's name was actually Gabriel Maldonado. The Army determined he was not dead.

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