Engineer says he saw teen sitting on tracks before accident

CHESTER, S.C. — A 17-year-old was hit by a train near Torbit Street in Chester, according to officials.
 
The train engineer said he saw Nick Chambers sitting on the tracks and Chambers tried to jump out of the way.
 
There was no way to stop the train in time.
 
The engineer pulled the brakes, but it got to this intersection at Gadsen Street before it came to a complete stop, half a mile away.
 
Neighbors said 17-year-old Nick Chambers was just a few yards away from his home when he was hit by this freight train, partially severing his foot. Chambers is a student at Chester High School.
     
One neighbor said when the sound of the braking train stopped, she could hear Chambers yelling for his mother.
 
"This happened to a good person.  A good child," said neighbor Page Gladney.
      
She took Channel 9 to the path behind the apartment complex.
    
Just beyond the thick brush, Channel 9 found caution tape that marked the spot where the train hit Chambers.
 
Neighbors and his mother found him next to the train stopped on the tracks.
 
"I'm at a loss for words.  I don't even know what to say. My heart goes out to his mother and his family," Gladney said.
 
Chambers was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
 
Gladney is now worried about her young children.
 
She said several children in the neighborhood cross the tracks to go to the apartments.
 
Channel 9 found Hubert Holmes walking on the tracks right pass the spot where Chambers was hit.
 
"It's a little disturbing, but like I said I have been walking this rail since I was a child," Holmes said.
 
He said it sometimes gets hot and walkers will stop on the tracks to rest, but he says you can hear a train coming from miles away.
 
"You can (hear) it off from a distance and a lot of times they be done blew the horn several times," Holmes said.
 
Emergency officials said crossing or walking these rails may be convenient, but they say it is dangerous and a person can be fined.

WSOC