Bud Hanson's doctors were confident he could return home from the Bloomington nursing home where he was receiving kidney dialysis in the fall of 2010.

But his health quickly went south when he received word that his wife, Dorothy, had been killed by a hit-and-run driver just moments after she brought him a homemade spaghetti dinner to Martin Luther Care Center. He died nine days later. Both were 85.

Before he was ordered to spend three months in the workhouse Friday, driver Mark Wayne Lindgren, 55, of Bloomington acknowledged for the first time what he did to both lives: He turned to the Hanson family and apologized.

"This has changed me quite a bit in the way I treat people," he said at his sentencing. "We all have people in our lives like the Hansons. I think about the accident every day."

After a stipulated-facts trial in which Lindgren was convicted of felony hit-and-run resulting in the death of Dorothy Hanson, District Judge Daniel Mabley sentenced him to three months in the Hennepin County workhouse and three years' probation.

If he successfully completes probation, the conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanor. He must also pay a $1,666 fine and restitution to Hanson family members, who expressed disappointment in the punishment.

Mabley acknowledged that disappointment in court, but said that the death appeared to have been an accident.

Lindgren was charged with striking Hanson the evening of Oct. 21, 2010, as she walked the few blocks from the care center to her home on 10th Avenue S. It was dark when she tried to cross Old Shakopee Road at an intersection about 30 yards from a marked crosswalk controlled by traffic lights.

The next day Lindgren contacted an attorney, who eventually directed police to his pickup, which was missing a driver's side headlight and was damaged on the front driver's side fender.

Lindgren claims he did not know he struck Hanson, but assumed he was responsible after he saw the news reports of her death. A search of his apartment revealed a document written on a computer that said he got home and noticed the damage and "assumed it was a deer or bird."

He eventually turned himself in. He claimed that he had one or two drinks that night before going home. Lindgren has one prior drunken-driving conviction and has been ticketed for other driving violations.

At sentencing, Lindgren's lawyer, John Tackett, maintained that the accident, although tragic, was just that. He said alcohol did not play a role in the crash.

"He's a good man. He's remorseful," Tackett said. "He hates every day this happened to him and the Hanson family, but there's nothing he can do to take that back."

Lindgren will report to the workhouse next week.

Afterward, a Hanson niece, Neva Hanson of Eagan, and close family friend Mike Soukup of Hudson, Wis., stood outside the courtroom.

Soukup called the sentence "a sad reflection on our society and, basically, how we value human life."

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921