AULANDER – Despite the efforts of multiple first responders, an Ahoskie woman lost her life near here Monday afternoon in a single-vehicle accident.

Vicki Harden, 61, died at the scene of the accident, which took place at around 2 p.m. on Mill Branch Road, located in Hertford County near Aulander.

North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper S.C. Hegmann investigated the accident. He reported that Harden was operating a 1998 Ford Escort, traveling westbound. The vehicle, according to Hegmann, traveled off the right side of the road, then came back onto the pavement where it crossed the centerline and veered off the left shoulder. There, the vehicle initially impacted a ditch, and then a tree, causing it to overturn.

Hegmann said Harden, who was traveling alone, was trapped inside the vehicle. Emergency responders from the St. John Volunteer Fire Department, Millennium Volunteer Fire Department, and Hertford County EMS were dispatched to the scene.

The fatality was the eighth of the year within the NC Highway Patrol’s Troop A / District 2 area (Bertie, Gates, and Hertford counties). Three of those have occurred in Hertford County.