More than one person was part of Wednesday afternoon's dramatic rescue of a mother, toddler and infant from the cold waters of the Yukon River in Whitehorse.

"I'm just so grateful it had a happy ending,” Ruth Whitney said in an interview this morning.

She and her friend, Darlene Paquet, were out for their daily walk together at the time, Whitney told the Star.

Walking along the Millennium Trail beside the Yukon River, they heard a woman yelling, "My baby!”

Seeing a woman in the water, Paquet ran to find someone with a cell phone to call 911 while Whitney quickly made her way to the river's edge to help.

The woman in the water had rushed in after her three-year-old son after the stroller he was strapped into slipped away from the trail into the water as she tended the boy's three-month-old sibling in her arms.

The woman had managed to get the boy out of the stroller, but struggled to get back to shore.

Whitney could see the woman carrying the young boy with his arms wrapped around his mom's neck and also noticed what appeared to be a doll floating on the water. She later learned it was the three-month-old infant.

At the same time, she was running to help the family members, another man came down to the rocky shoreline ahead of her.

Whitney stressed she doesn't recall anyone "jumping” into the river, as was reported Thursday.

He was able to grab one of the woman's arms and told Whitney to grab the other one, which she did, helping to bring the woman to shore.

As the mother and her children came closer to shore, another man in the area came in and brought the toddler onto land while his mother was helped.

Whitney said she was amazed by the mother's calmness. As the little boy cried, wondering where his boot had gone, his mother consoled him, telling him they would buy him a new set.

It was only after the mother and children were on land that Whitney realized what she thought to be a doll was an infant.

While she's not sure how the infant came to be in the arms of another man who was on the shore with her, she said when the baby was burped, water gurgled out of the infant's mouth.

In the parking lot of the SS Klondike was a family who had a motorhome.

They offered up the vehicle so the mother and her children could get warm and dried off while they waited for emergency responders to get to the scene.

The family members were later all deemed to be in good health by ambulance attendants.

Whitney and Paquet continued on their walk shortly after the family was safe on land.

It's fortunate so many people were around to respond, Whitney said.

On Thursday, Whitehorse RCMP praised the work of the Quebec man who helped pull the woman and two children from the river and submitted his name for a bravery award. They are not releasing his name nor the small town in Quebec he and his family live in.

This morning, police also had praise for all those involved in the rescue.

"These are good people,” Sgt. Don Rogers said.

He explained that when police initially provided the media with information on the rescue, officers didn't have all the details at that time about who was involved.