Mobile home wanders

A tractor-trailer hauling half of a double-wide mobile home and traveling westbound on Interstate 80 crashed Monday morning just east of North Texas Street in Fairfield. The accident blocked all but one lane of the interstate and snarled traffic for hours.

According to the California Highway Patrol, shortly after 11:15 a.m. the driver of a Native American Trucking Company big-rig lost control. The rig jack-knifed, with the mobile home section rolling off the trailer onto its side and blocking three of the four lanes of traffic on I-80.

The tractor - or cab - portion of the rig came to rest on part of eastbound Lyon Road.

The driver of the big rig, Dan Effman, 53, was taken by ambulance to NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield with complaints of pain, officers said. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.

An escort car, driven by Effman's wife Cathy Huggins, was traveling behind the oversized load, which was on its way to Napa when the accident occurred.

"He was swaying a little like it was windy," Huggins said. "Then the swaying got bigger and bigger."

Although CHP officers didn't know how fast the driver was traveling, Huggins said they weren't driving more than 50 mph.

"It's pretty amazing that no one else was involved," said CHP Officer Darren Carrington. The CHP allowed traffic to pass the accident scene slowly in the fast lane as traffic backed up as far east as Leisure Town Road in Vacaville.

Lyons Road opened just before 2 p.m. and all lanes on I-80 were opened just at after 2:30 p.m.

The mobile home section was transported via tow truck to a storage yard in Fairfield. Source