CINCINNATI -- A man sending a text message avoided being hit by a train going in one direction only to be struck by another train.

Witnesses told police the man was looking down at his cell phone as he crossed some railroad tracks around 9 a.m. in Elmwood Place.

Witnesses said the man waited for a southbound train to pass, put his head down and started walking across the tracks.

The man apparently did not see or hear a northbound train as it approached, witnesses said.

"It's one of those things, you kind of see it coming, but you don't think it's going to happen like that, and the way he was walking and stuff, and I saw that train closing in, I honestly thought he had made it," said witness Mike Billups.

The victim, whose name has not been released, was taken to University Hospital with undisclosed injuries.