LAKE STATION, Ind. (AP) - Police say a freight train hit a 16-year-old Lake Station boy, hurling him 70 feet.

Lake Station Police Chief Mike Stills said the boy was in critical condition Tuesday night at University of Chicago Hospitals with head and internal injuries. He was breathing but unconscious after the accident.

He says Nathan Furlong was walking along the train tracks when he was hit about 2 p.m. Furlong is a sophomore at Edison High School.

Stills says the CSX train hit Furlong "square on." He says the teen apparently was wearing a stereo headset and may not have heard the train approaching behind him at about 37 mph.

The train engineer told police he blew his whistle some 50 times in warning.