GATES – An early Sunday morning mishap near here has claimed the life of a Gates County teen.

Cody Francis Herman, 19, of Sunbury died at a Virginia hospital after being airlifted from the accident scene.

Herman, a 2008 Gates County High School graduate, was a student at The College of the Albemarle. He was a former football athlete at GCHS.

According to a report filed by North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper G.L. Bunch, Herman was operating a 1995 Ford Mustang east on Gates Bank Road (RP 1302) shortly before 1 a.m. on Sunday.

The vehicle ran off the right side of the road and then came back on the roadway, left of center, before traveling off the right side once again. There, Bunch’s report showed that the vehicle struck a ditch and then impacted a driveway culvert, causing the car to become airborne. It then struck a mailbox and two trees before coming to rest, on the driver’s side, on a ditch bank.

Trooper Bunch said Herman was not wearing a seat belt and was trapped inside the vehicle.

Following extrication, Herman was airlifted by Nightingale to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital where he succumbed to injuries sustained in the crash.

Bunch was speed was a definite factor in causing the accident.

The fatality was the 16th of the year within the Highway Patrol’s Troop A, District II area (Bertie, Gates and Hertford counties). Five of those fatalities have occurred in Gates County.