ASKEWVILLE – For the second time in three days, this tiny Bertie County community was rocked with the news of another death in a motor vehicle accident.

Ryan Harris Mann, 21 of 520 Askewville Road, lost his life early Saturday morning in a single-car wreck along a stretch of RP 1128 (Earley Station Road). The accident occurred at 5:30 a.m. approximately one mile west of US 13 near the Buena Vista community.

According to a report filed by North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Jan Raines, Mann was operating a 2006 Nissan passenger car east on RP 1128. The vehicle ran off the right side of the roadway where it struck a ditch and culvert, causing the car to overturn. The vehicle then came back across the roadway and came to rest in a ditch on the left side of the road.

Mann was wearing a seatbelt, according to Raines’ report.

An investigation of the accident scene led Raines to cite driver fatigue as the possible cause of the accident.

The motor vehicle death was the 11th of the year in the NCHP’s Troop A n District II (Bertie, Gates and Hertford counties). Of those 11 fatalities, four have occurred in Bertie County.

Forty-eight hours earlier, Deanna Starr Hepler, 27 of Askewville, lost her life in a single-vehicle wreck one mile from her home. That wreck also injured four of her children, one critically.