Witnesses describe destruction at trailer park

by Scott Neuffer

Staff Writer

Early Friday morning, 42-year-old Mark Adams was sleeping in his mobile home in Holbrook Junction when a crack of thunder woke him up. At least it sounded like thunder.

"I went outside and the pinon pine in my backyard was gone, and I realized something had ripped it out," he said.

Across the street, 57-year-old Barry Mortimer was awakened by the same sound.

"I got up, looked outside and told my girlfriend there was a semi-truck in the yard," he said.

For both residents, a nightmare unfolded as they began realizing the severity of what had happened. A double trailer semi-truck, transporting food south on Highway 395, had careened off the road and plowed a path of destruction through the Holbrook Station Mobile Home Park.

Two young girls, 12 and 16, and the truck driver, age unknown, were injured in the 5 a.m. accident.

Neighbors found the truck lying twisted in a mountain of debris where it had finally stopped against a vacant trailer. What was a front yard between two homes became a field of broken dry wall, torn insulation and splintered pine trees.

A bloody shirt lay at the edge of the wreckage, and Adams and Mortimer realized the truck had sheared off the rear bedroom of a neighboring trailer where two girls had been sleeping.

"I first helped the driver out of the cab, then I saw a girl get up from under the truck, and she had blood all over," Mortimer said. "She started walking to her house, then collapsed."

Mortimer said he and his girlfriend helped the injured 12-year-old into their home then called an ambulance.

"It took about 35 minutes before firefighters found the other girl under a mattress," Mortimer said. "They also turned off the gas to the house. The propane tank was leaking and everything smelled like propane. There were tire marks on the tank where the truck hit it."

The 16-year-old girl found in the debris and the driver were taken by ambulance to Carson Valley Medical Center then transferred by helicopter to Renown Regional Center in Reno. Smoky air prevented helicopters from going directly to the scene of the accident.

Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper James Farmer said the 16-year-old remained in critical condition.

"We don't suspect alcohol and drugs at this point," Farmer said.

Mortimer said the driver told him he had fallen asleep.

"When I pulled him out of the truck, he said, 'I think I fell asleep,'" Mortimer said.

East Fork Deputy Fire Chief Bobby Wartgow confirmed this, saying the driver told authorities the same thing.

Adams, who lives right next to victims, said the family " two adult sisters, a boyfriend, and two girls " had just moved from Sacramento into the neighborhood a month ago.

"They are really nice," he said. "They were just talking yesterday about being afraid of trucks coming down off the highway into their house. I told them a kid in a pickup truck had run into my yard last winter.

"It's happened more than once, and we keep saying we need a guard rail on the road. But Holbrook Junction is kind of the end of the world, and no one comes down here to do anything," Adams said.