A child hurt while trying to jump a train had his foot amputated Thursday night, the same day Calgary workers repaired the fence he used to access the tracks.

"This has caused a little boy's life to be changed forever," Sabina Piche, mother of nine-year-old Josh, said from the Alberta Children's Hospital.

Josh Piche lost a foot after trying to hop a train in southeast Calgary.
(CBC News)

Her son, who is mentally challenged, tried to hop onto a moving freight train Wednesday in Dover, near Hubalta Road SE.

People in the neighbourhood said children are constantly trying to hop trains, and both adults and children use a hole in a fence to cross the CN Rail tracks.

While the fence was repaired Thursday, city worker Ted Gillman said he expected that by Friday morning, someone will have cut the wires.

One child told CBC News she crosses the tracks every day to go visit her cousin. She said it's a shortcut children use to get to school to shave time off their walk.

CN Rail says there is a proper crossing 500 metres away and anyone caught trespassing could be fined.

Piche said access to the tracks should be permanently blocked or, better yet, the tracks should be moved out of the residential neighbourhood.
 
"It's not fair for those who are minorities and have no say. So as a mother, I speak up. I would like to see the railroads removed and I don't care how much it would cost the government to do that. When you lose a life, you can't replace back that life."