What would have been a pleasant afternoon boat ride in Boothbay Harbor quickly turned into a mother’s worst nightmare when Elizabeth Medina realized she had locked her two-week-old infant inside a hot car in the parking lot next to Boothbay Harbor Inn on July 24.

Soon after the doors had locked, Medina, 30, of Hampden realized her cellphone and keys were still inside the car, and she began to scream.

Eva Benda of Southborough, Mass., was walking across the footbridge from the east side of the harbor when she heard Medina’s distress calls and dialed 9-1-1.

Boothbay Harbor Police Officer Richard Mirabile responded to the call but had to search three separate fenced in parking lots that are located in the same vicinity before he spotted Medina.

By the time he reached the car, 15 minutes had elapsed.

“The sun was shining, the woman was in distress, the baby was crying,” Mirabile said. “I didn’t want to take any chances. I took out a window.”

Mirabile removed the crying infant from the back seat of the passenger side of the car, and called Boothbay Region Ambulance Service.

Medina was teary-eyed as family members showed up shortly after.

“The baby appears to be OK,” Mirabile said after paramedics examined the infant.

In the 13 years Mirabile has been a police officer he said had never witnessed an infant trapped in a car before.

“It doesn’t take long for the sun to heat up the inside of that car, especially for a two-week-old infant,” Mirabile said. “It’s a good thing everyone is OK.”