Dorchester fisherman hit and killed by freight train in Wareham

A freight train struck and killed a 56-year-old man from Dorchester on Thursday while fishing in Wareham, the Plymouth County Attorney’s Office announced.

Just before 2.20pm, the prosecutor’s office said, a Mass Coastal waste train was crossing the Narrows Crossing railway bridge when it hit Christopher Cater, who was fishing alongside the tracks.

The collision threw Cater into the River Wareham, the prosecutor’s office said. First responders pulled Cater from the water and took him to nearby Tobey Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The train engineer and the conductor remained on the scene after the accident. The prosecutor’s office said the train was traveling at 25 mph and sounding its horn when it hit Cater, and all track barriers were working properly.

Narrows Crossing is a popular local fishing spot, and Cater was with friends when he was hit, WCVB reported. A witness told the news station that Cater did not appear to hear the train’s horn.

The train driver jumped into the water in an attempt to save Cater, WCVB reported. They came out unscathed.

Cater is the fourth person to be hit by a train in Massachusetts in the past two months.

On June 4, a commuter train hit and injured a Rockport police officer in his patrol car. On May 31, a commuter train rammed and killed a Whitman-Hanson High School student as she was walking across the tracks. On April 26, a commuter train in Abington struck and killed a man after he drove his car around the security barrier.