A 59-year-old Antioch man will serve up to 10 years in state prison after being sentenced in connection with a 2019 incident near Chico, where he fell asleep behind the wheel of a 26,000-pound dump truck and collided with a vehicle stopped at a red light, killing two.
Thomas Fairhurst previously had pleaded guilty in Butte County Superior Court to two counts of vehicular manslaughter and later was found guilty of one count of failure to appear.
Fairhurst was driving his dump truck 55 mph north on Highway 99 when he approached a red light at the intersection of Neal Road, south of Chico.
Instead of braking, Fairhurst’s vehicle hit a subcompact Chevrolet Aveo that was stopped at the light, pushing the Chevy into a Toyota Sienna sport utility vehicle that in turn was pushed into a parked semi truck.
Donald and Apryl Shippen, a husband and wife who were passengers in the Chevrolet, were killed, while their adult son suffered serious injuries and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. Three people in the Toyota also suffered major injuries requiring medical care.
Neither Fairhurst nor the semi truck driver were injured.
According to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, Fairhurst was found to have spent the night before partying after working long days in the Paradise area in the aftermath of the Camp Fire.
“Investigators concluded Fairhurst did not obtain the amount of sleep needed to operate his commercial vehicle safely and attentively, and that he fell asleep as he approached the busy Neal Road intersection,” according to the district attorney’s office.
Though the incident occurred in 2019, Ramsey said that Fairhurst’s case was one of many that were delayed repeatedly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Fairhurst pleaded guilty in February, he failed to appear at his April 20 sentencing, and thus was charged and convicted of failing to appear.
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