HAYWOOD COUNTY, N.C. (WBTV/Gray News) - An evening drive turned disastrous over the weekend after a woman drove her SUV around barriers and plunged down an embankment along a hurricane-damaged stretch of Interstate 40 in North Carolina.

The Junaluska Fire Department said the crash happened at around 8 p.m. Saturday on eastbound I-40 near Dry Gap Ridge in Haywood County.

Firefighters said the driver of the SUV drove around a blockade and crashed down the rocky embankment before the vehicle came to rest on its passenger side, right on the bank of the Pigeon River.

Officials estimated that the SUV ended up around 100 feet from the roadway.

Emergency crews utilized a rope to repel down the embankment and free the driver from the vehicle.

Once the driver, who was the only person in the SUV, was freed, she was taken by ambulance to a landing zone and then airlifted to an area hospital.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol later stated that the driver died as a result of the crash. She was identified as 62-year-old Patricia Ann Mahoney, of Southern Pines.

Several agencies responded to the crash, including a Cocke County Swiftwater Rescue Team out of Tennessee, and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.

A towing company was also called in to retrieve the SUV.

No first responders were hurt during the rescue.

"We want to remind Haywood County travelers that the large orange and white 'Road Closed' signage and concrete barriers are there for a reason, and one of those reasons isn't to drive around them," the Junaluska Fire Department wrote on Facebook.

The crash was just miles from the Tennessee state line. North Carolina officials have said for weeks now that the stretch of I-40 remains closed after flooding from Hurricane Helene washed out large parts of the highway.