Former "Bachelor" star Chris Soules says that not a day passes when he doesn't think about his involvement in a fatal 2017 crash on an Iowa farm.
Soules opened up to People about the crash after accepting a suspended sentence of two years and supervised release on Aug. 23 for an aggravated misdemeanor.
"The trauma of being involved in (the accident) is something I cannot describe," Soules said. "I think about it every day."
Soules was initially charged with a felony for fleeing the scene of a deadly accident, but his offense was reduced to an aggravated misdemeanor after he entered a conditional guilty plea last year.
The 37-year-old gained fame in 2015 as the farmer who tried to find love on the reality TV series "The Bachelor." He proposed to contestant Whitney Bischoff at the end of the ABC show, but the two later broke off the engagement.
Soules was driving a Chevrolet pickup truck in Aurora, Iowa, in April 2017 when he struck Kenny Mosher, 66, while Mosher was driving a John Deere tractor, according to police.
Soules told People he was driving from one end of his family's farm to the other to pick up a farm worker when the crash occurred. He called 911 and then began administering CPR.
Mosher, an Army veteran, father of two and grandfather of three, died of his injuries at nearby Mercy Hospital.
"There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could have done more or change the outcome of what happened," he said. "My outlook on life has changed forever."
After paramedics arrived, Soules got into a truck that had been driven to the site of the accident by another farm worker and drove home, which resulted in his arrest and the initial felony charge.
"I was out of my mind,'' he said. "I felt like I did everything in my power when I was there and I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know anything. I just knew it was really bad and I was scared."
A blood test administered six hours later did not find any presence of alcohol, according to court records. Three witnesses also testified under oath that he did not appear to have been drinking.
Soules told People he recently reached a civil settlement with Mosher's family and is now trying to look toward the future.
“I’ll live with it forever,'' he said. "But I will carry on, and as a result of the tragedy, do something bigger and better with my life."