UPDATE: Three dead in wrong-way crash on Highway 401 near Lancaster

The Labour Day weekend was marred with tragedy after two people -- one in this Jeep Liberty -- were killed in a three-vehicle crash on Highway 401, east of Lancaster on Sept. 6, 2015. (Newswatch Group/Bill Kingston)

LANCASTER — SD&G O.P.P. said Monday an SUV involved in a three-vehicle crash Sunday was travelling east in the westbound lanes shortly before impact.

A third person has also died as a result of injuries sustained in the wreck around 8 p.m. Sunday night.

The SUV, driven by Johnathan Cawthron, 28, of Nova Scotia collided head-on with a Hyundai sedan, which was passing the tractor-trailer at the time.

The sport utility vehicle was then struck by a westbound tractor-trailer, said police.

Cawthron and the wife of the Hyundai driver – Akansksha Jain, 27, of Kingston – died at the scene.

The Hyundai driver, 31, his 58-year-old mother and three-year-old son were taken to hospital with serious injuries.

The mother – Sharad Srivastava, 58, of East India – died of her injuries overnight in hospital, police said.

The force of the crash sliced a Jeep Liberty in half. Part of the chassis and the driver’s side of the vehicle was pinned under the front wheels of the transport. Roughly 100 feet up the highway was the transmission.

A sedan-type vehicle was also in the median while vehicle debris littered the freeway.

The rig was registered to a small flatbed trucking firm in Repentigny, Que. The 53-year-old driver from Sainte-Lazare, Que. was not injured.

The crash happened a few hundred feet east of the 2nd Line Road overpass, known to locals as the Westley’s Point overpass.

A single lane of eastbound traffic was getting through the area overnight and westbound lanes opened just before 7 a.m. Monday morning.

There have been four deaths in the past five days on Highway 401 in Eastern Ontario.

A trucker died Thursday after his rig hit a rock cut near Mallorytown and a woman died Wednesday when an SUV rolled several times near Prescott.

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