Crisis team helps deal with pupil’s death

WARREN – Eleven-year-old Nathan Chheng, killed Sunday in a train accident, was loved by his peers at Jefferson Village School.

“They loved him in the fifth grade,” Principal Laura Gabriel said Monday, noting pupils at the kindergarten to eighth-grade school made cards to remember their classmate.

Chheng was struck and killed Sunday afternoon by a train while fishing from a trestle just south of the Depot Road crossing in Knox County.

He was fishing in a stream that joined South Pond. With him were three adults – Aaron Staples, 26, Trisha Schumann, 20, and Randy Heald, 26, all of Warren. Staples was in critical condition Monday morning at a Lewiston hospital. Contacted later Monday, a Central Maine Medical Center spokeswoman said the family did not want information released.

While the four were fishing on the 77-foot-long trestle, Chheng shouted “train” and they all started running, according to Maine State Police. Schumann and Heald jumped clear of the train.

Staples and the boy were almost at the end of the trestle when Chheng stumbled, then was struck. Staples, who tried to help the boy, was hit and thrown toward the water. An unidentified boater picked him up and took him to the public landing for ambulance transfer to a helicopter.

The victim and the adults were not related, according to state police.

Heald was dating Chheng’s mother, and Staples and Schumann are a couple.

Maine Eastern Railroad Engine 4228 had been on a run from Brunswick to Rockland, pulling six empty hopper cars. It blew its whistle at the Finntown Road crossing, about a quarter mile before the trestle. The train was traveling at 25 mph when the engineer and conductor spotted the four people, Jon Shute, general manager of MERR, said Monday.

The accident occurred a quarter-mile from the Depot Road crossing, which is clearly marked with no trespassing signage, Shute said. Jersey barriers block vehicle access.

At Jefferson Village School on Monday, all of the teachers were brought together before pupils arrived, Gabriel said, and guidance counselors talked to staff. A statement was read to pupils about the child’s death.

“We tried not to fill in with any details,” Gabriel said, noting officials had little information as well. Notices to parents were sent home with the kids.

A psychologist was also on hand, as were the superintendent and assistant superintendent of School Union 132.

“We’re working with a crisis team” and dealing with “immediate emotions of staff and students,” said Superintendent Frank Boynton.

He estimated that Chheng had attended Jefferson Village School for just one year. The school has an enrollment of about 255.