Baby OK after being found in hot Ont. car

An infant reportedly left alone in a hot, unlocked car in Rockland, Ont., at lunchtime Monday as the temperature soared to about 30 C has been located and is doing fine, police said Tuesday morning.

"We spoke with the mother, and the officers that attended checked out the child and it was OK," said Ontario Provincial Police Const. Guy Prevost. Police said the baby girl was three or four months old.

The OPP and the Children's Aid Society are continuing to investigate the incident on Laurier Street in the town, which is about 40 kilometres east of Ottawa.

OPP Const. Bernard Montpetit said the mother of the child was very emotional Tuesday morning, and it was "not a good time" for police to get a statement from her. They would get involved further if the Children's Aid Society requests that they do so, he added.

So far, charges of negligence or abandonment are unlikely, Montpetit said.

"What we think is [it was] just a parent that was in a hurry and kind of lack of judgment and basically that's it."

The case had been reported to police by Annie Landreville, who works at the Jean Coutu pharmacy next to the parking lot where the baby was found.

Landreville had been heading to a restaurant when she heard crying, she told Radio-Canada, CBC's French-language service, Monday evening.

The baby was crying forcefully, but the sound was muffled, as though the windows were rolled up, she recalled, so she went to check on the child.

She found the infant, which she guessed was a baby girl less than two months old, in a car seat in the back of a car.

"She was crying, and sweating and she was all red in the face," Landreville said in French.

High reached 32.9 C

At first, Landreville had intended to just write down the licence plate of the car and call police. But as she started walking away, she felt she couldn't just leave the baby as the temperature was about 30 C, but felt much higher with the humidity. According to Environment Canada, a high of 32.9 C was measured in Ottawa Monday.

Landreville went back to the car and opened the door, which was unlocked, undid the buckle on the child's car seat and picked her up.

At that point, a woman came out of a nearby ice cream shop and confronted her, telling her it's not her business to take other people's children.

"I told her, 'You have no right to leave a child in a car when it's above 40 degrees,'" Landreville recalled.

The woman demanded the baby back, Landreville handed her over, the woman drove away, and Landreville called police.

Paramedics told CBC News that when the outside temperature is 30 degrees with a humidex of 40, a baby left inside a parked car can die in as little as 10 minutes.