Mobile home ripped open by food truck

GARDNERVILLE " A family of five who had just moved into the Holbrook Station Mobile Home Park along Highway 395 north of Topaz Lake told neighbors on Thursday they were worried about trucks running off the road into their home.

Their fears were confirmed the following morning when a truck driver traveling south apparently fell asleep at the wheel and sent two trailers full of food careening through the park, shearing off the rear room of the family's trailer.

The driver and two girls from the family, 12 and 16, were injured in the accident.

The 16-year-old girl had to be pulled from under the rig when the bedroom was sheared off the back of the trailer, said Douglas County Sheriff's Capt. Keith Logan.

She and the driver of the rig were taken to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno with injuries.

"They are a really nice family," said neighbor Mark Adams on Friday. "They moved here a month ago from Sacramento. Just yesterday they were talking about being afraid of trucks coming 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."

Early Friday morning, Adams and fellow neighbor Barry Mortimer were awakened by a loud, crashing sound.

"It sounded like thunder," Adams said. "I went outside and the pinon pine in my backyard was gone, and I realized something had ripped it out."

Mortimer quickly found the source of the noise.

"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 to realize the severity of what had happened.

A bloody shirt lay at the edge of the wreckage, and Adams and Mortimer realized the truck had ripped off the rear bedroom of their new neighbors' trailer where two girls had been sleeping. The truck lay twisted in a mountain of debris where it had stopped against a vacant trailer. What was a front yard between two homes had become a field of broken dry wall, torn insulation and splintered pine trees.

"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 the debris," 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."

Logan praised the efforts of the sheriff's office, East Fork and California fire departments, and the Nevada Highway Patrol.

"When they got there, they knew they had a missing child," Logan said. "They searched feverishly to find her and one of our deputies had to dig her out of the debris where she had been pinned."

East Fork Deputy Fire Chief Bobby Wartgow said the victim was lucky to be alive

"She (the 16-year-old) was still talking, but had multiple point trauma. Give or take a few feet, it could have been a whole lot worse," he said. "Of the three, she had the most critical injuries. We found her kind of on the saddle tanks on the big rig."

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

The 12-year-old had a head laceration and foot injury, Wartgow said.

"The master bedroom at the end of the mobile home was totally taken off," he said. "The fact we didn't have two fatalities is amazing."

Officials removed the truck from the scene around 1 p.m. on Friday.

"We don't suspect alcohol and drugs at this point," said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper James Farmer.

Mortimer said when he pulled the driver from the truck, the driver told him he had fallen asleep. East Fork Deputy Fire Chief Bobby Wartgow confirmed this, saying the driver had told authorities the same thing.

The Nevada Health Department was also called to the scene to determine if any of the food in the trailers was salvageable.