A tragic two-vehicle collision Monday night on Highway 1 five kilometres east of Tompkins resulted in the deaths of three adults, though a baby made it through alive without any injuries that appeared to be life threatening.

Swift Current's Marlene Cain was travelling eastbound on the highway, coming home from Lethbridge, and arrived at the scene with her husband Peter just minutes after she figured the crash occured, roughly around 8 p.m.

A 66-year-old man from Gull Lake, who police suspect was impaired, was going the wrong way on the highway (westbound in the eastbound lanes) when he hit the car with three family members from Shaunavon, killing a 62-year-old female driver and 27-year-old female passenger, and causing the baby to be sent to the hospital in Swift Current. The man from Gull Lake was the lone occupant of his vehicle.

Cain said despite the carnage, she wanted to give kudos for the car seat the baby was in being properly installed, and to the truckers that were on the scene, putting three semis across the road to cut off the lane, turning their high beams on so people could see as they tried to tend to the vehicles' occupants.

Cain said the collision occured at a dark part of the highway, where it turns, and the only way they saw the damage was from debris before they got to the pair of vehicles.

She said the vehicle with the man from Gull Lake was in particularly bad shape and eventually burst into flames. She gave a big tip of the hat to the firefighter that removed the 66 year old's body.

Cain had a lot of praise for everyone that arrived on the scene, but said the help she and her husband (who used to be a long-haul trucker) gave - pulling the baby out of the car along with the truckers, and holding him - was the same thing anybody in their right mind would do.