CARIBOU – A South Carolina truck driver involved in a fatal Route 1 collision in January has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Virgil L. Woods, 61, of Hanton, S.C., pleaded no contest last month to felony leaving the scene of an accident and operating without a license.

Sitting in Aroostook County Superior Court, Justice Allen E. Hunter sentenced Woods on Sept. 10. Woods also received a concurrent sentence of six months in jail for operating without a license. All but 18 months of the sentence was suspended, and Woods will be on probation for four years once he is released from jail.

Woods originally was charged with manslaughter, operating without a license and felony leaving the scene of an accident in which there was personal injury and a fatality.

He was the driver of a tractor-trailer that, on Jan. 29, collided with a car driven by Robert Nelson Jr., 43, of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The accident occurred on the Aroostook River Bridge, near the Aroostook Centre Mall on Route 1. The truck driver failed to stop at the accident scene.

Nelson, who died at the scene, had to be extricated from his 1999 Honda.

Gary Nelson, 40, of Presque Isle, Nelson’s brother, was hospitalized at Presque Isle and Bangor with injuries suffered in the incident.

Carrie Linthicum, Aroostook County assistant district attorney, said Woods gave an address in South Carolina. His driver’s license, which is believed to be suspended, is from Florida.

She said Woods told the court that he believed the incident was an accident.

“I didn’t know I hit anybody,” Linthicum described Woods as telling the court.

According to police reports, the trailer on Woods’ tractor fishtailed across the centerline and hit Nelson’s car.

The car, which was traveling in the opposite direction from the truck, became entangled with the trailer for a time.

The Maine State Police stopped Woods about four miles south of the accident, after witnesses provided police with a description of the truck involved in the accident.