STOCKHOLM – A New Sweden man was hurt Tuesday morning when his pickup truck slammed into the back of a stopped tractor-trailer truck.

Melvin Nelson, 53, was traveling east on Lake Street in Stockholm shortly before 7 a.m. when the accident occurred.

Trooper Steven Stubbs of the Maine State Police said Nelson apparently was blinded by the sun and did not see the 1994 Freightliner operated by Christopher McLaughlin, 40, of Grand Falls, New Brunswick.

Stubbs said McLaughlin was stopped at the side of the road with his truck’s hazard flashers operating, waiting to turn into a sand pit.

The trooper said McLaughlin had been hauling sand from the pit and was waiting for another truck to leave before he drove in.

Nelson’s 1995 Nissan pickup truck slammed into the rear of the parked tractor-trailer unit, destroying the car and causing an estimated $4,500 in damage to the trailer.

Nelson, who was not wearing a seat belt, was taken by ambulance to Cary Medical Center in Caribou. A spokeswoman there said he was transferred in stable condition to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Stubbs said he thought Nelson had suffered some broken bones in the crash, but McLaughlin was not hurt.

The posted speed on the road was 30 miles an hour, and Stubbs said he did not think Nelson was speeding at the time of the crash.