JACKSONVILLE, Fla (WFLA/CNN) – A hot car incident in Florida this weekend nearly ended in tragedy — but this time, it didn’t involve a child or a dog.

Inside the backseat of a car is where a small pig was left in the Avenues Mall parking lot Monday. Miranda Lamendola and her co-worker called mall security after noticing the pig was left in the car in the scorching heat.

“We noticed the pig is in the car and of course were looking to see what is going on. The car is parked with no AC. All four windows only have an inch actually cracked, so not even my arm could actually fit through it,” Lamendola said.

Security told Lamendola they didn’t have the authority to get inside the car without the owner’s permission.

“At that point I call [the sheriff’s office] because 45 minutes goes by since I actually videotaped, knowing that the pig has no water, has no food and he’s freaking out like I’m freaking out after 45 minutes after this whole process,” she said.

Once the sheriff’s office arrived, they began looking and waiting for the owners to show up. The pig’s condition starts to get worse.

“The pig is in here and he’s foaming at the mouth. When he foamed at the mouth, I was freaking out,” she said.

The officer eventually broke the window, freeing the pig.

“They broke the window, got the pig in the back seat of the cop car. So when he got in there, luckily we had water. So we sprayed the water all along the pig and he was finally responding to us, Lamendola said.

After more than an hour of the pig being left in the car, its owners, Mark Gray and Trinity Tavarez-Soto finally show up and were arrested on animal cruelty charges.

Lamendola says she’s grateful she helped save the pig.

“I was so happy because this pig is so cute and adorable,” she said. “So it was just, it was very gratifying knowing I was able to save a life. Because it was going to die.”

Animal care and protective services now has custody of the pig.