State officials said a Tennessee trooper inadvertently ran over a man in Greenbrier over the weekend.

The man, identified by the Tennessee Highway Patrol as 49-year-old James Yates of Springfield, died.

According to information from troopers and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, at 2 a.m. on Saturday, a driver traveling in the 2700 block of Highway 41 South noticed what appeared to be a body lying in the road.

The driver turned around and drove back, getting within 10 feet of the body and shined their headlights towards the body.

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The driver reported to authorities seeing the body of a white male, wearing only blue jean pants, and that the man appeared unresponsive. The driver moved their vehicle a little farther away from the body and called 911.

While the 911 call was in progress, officials said 32-year-old Trooper John-Mark Tarr was on patrol in the area in a 2016 Ford Explorer approaching the stopped vehicle. The vehicle flashed their lights at Tarr to get his attention and when Tarr approached the vehicle flashing its headlights, he inadvertently ran over the body, officials said.

"He immediately stopped his vehicle, got out to check what he had ran over, and upon realizing he ran over a man, he quickly called THP dispatch and requested for an ambulance to respond to his location," officials released in a statement Monday.

According to a THP report, Yates was pronounced dead at the scene.

A preliminary report states it was not immediately known why Yates was lying in the road.

An autopsy will determine the man's cause of death.

Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Critical Incident Response Team and its Criminal Investigations Division responded to the scene and as of Monday the incident remained under investigation.

Reach Natalie Neysa Alund at nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.