A Vicksburg woman died Friday afternoon when her SUV flipped and hit a tree on Warriors Trail.

Whitney Roxanne Selby, 21, 180 Ellison Road, “had a big heart,” said her mother, June Selby.

A former student at Warren Central High School, Selby was pursuing a G.E.D. and planned to attend Hinds Community College in the spring, her mother said.

“Whitney will always be remembered for her bright smile, big heart, putting others ahead of herself and never turning away a stray animal,” June Selby said.

Selby was pronounced dead at the scene by Deputy Coroner Ronald C. Regan, who said she died of head injuries. No autopsy was planned, Regan said.

Warren County Sheriff’s Deputy Ford Emery said emergency workers were called to the wreck around noon.

Jerry Jackson, who was working at a home on Warriors Trail, heard the crash and went to see what happened. He found Selby in her 2002 Honda Passport and called for help.

“They said they were on the way. Then they asked me if she was responding to me, and I said, ‘no.’ I thought she just might have been unconscious,” Jackson said.

Emery said no other people or vehicles were involved in the wreck on the winding, two-lane county road. He said Selby’s SUV was apparently westbound, headed toward Mississippi 27, when it left the road and went airborne, striking a tree and knocking it over.

Jackson, his mother and a passing motorist watched Friday afternoon as authorities investigated. “I was praying that she’d be all right,” said Jackson. “It just hurts me so much to see something like that. She probably just left home. She didn’t know it was going to end like this.”

Funeral arrangements for Selby were incomplete.

Friday’s accident was the 10th fatal wreck on Warren County roads this year. Five have died in wrecks on city roads.