BOSTON - A Massachusetts State Police trooper Wednesday night in Boston is credited with saving a newborn baby that stopped breathing and was turning blue, police said.

The trooper aided the panic-stricken mother in a McDonald’s parking lot off Soldier Field Road just before 6 p.m. and was able to get the woman’s 8-day old boy breathing again EMTs arrived on scene, said MSP spokesman David Procopio.

The woman had been driving her SUV while her own mother was feeding the baby in the rear seat. At some point the grandmother said the baby seemed in distress, and the woman pulled over into a parking lot.

When they found the child not breathing, they called 911.

Arone, assigned to the State Police Brighton Barracks, was first on the scene despite being dispatched initially to the wrong parking lot. When he found the car, he saw the mother in the front seat with the baby in her lap. She screamed that he was turning blue.

Procopio said that Arone, himself the father of a 4-month old, took the baby and began to check for an obstructed airway. He then loosened the swaddling and tapped him gently on the back.

“This caused the child to give a great big belch and to release an air bubble and a large amount of saliva and formula,” Procopio said. “The baby boy began to breathe again and started crying, which surely was the best sound everyone present will hear for a long time.”

Arone then led the family into the McDonald’s to stay warm while they waited for EMTs to arrive. The child and mother were each taken to Children’s hospital to be evaluated.