On the autumn day of September 12, 2008, at 4:22 p.m. in California's San Fernando Valley, a commuter train carrying 225 passengers collided with an oncoming freight train at the combine speeds of 83 mph.
It was known as the Chatsworth crash and was the deadliest incident in Metrolink's history. 135 people were injured and of those 87 were taken to hospitals, 46 were in critical condition, and another 25 passengers died. It was a vivid and shocking scene to those who rendered emergency services.
One of the deceased was Charles E. Peck, a 49 year old customer service agent for Delta Airline's Salt Lake City International Airport. Peck had come to Los Angeles for a job interview and was hoping to transfer there to be nearer to his fiancee, Andrea Katz of Westlake Village.
While on the way to the station to get Charles, Andrea heard about the accident on her car radio! Riding with her in the car on that day were his grown sons from a previous marriage, his father and his step mother. Everyone was devastated by the tragic news and mourned the loss of their beloved Charles. Later that day, they were notified that his body had not yet been found and the rest of the wreckage was mangled beyond description.
Charles Pecks body was recovered among the debris almost 12 hours after the collision, yet for the first seven hours his cellphone placed 35 calls to his loved ones. The calls came in, one call after another and were placed to his brother, his step mother, his son and his fiancee repeatedly throughout the night. When the family members answered the calls, there was nothing but static on the other end of the line. When they called the number back, it went straight to his voice mail! The calls gave them hope that the man they loved was somehow still alive.
The phone calls prompted a crew to trace the whereabouts of the signal and to search again thoroughly through the wreckage. About an hour after the phone calls stopped, the rescue team found the general location where the calls were coming from and located Charles Peck's body. All evidence indicated that he was killed instantly.
The autopsy was conclusive that Charles had died on impact, yet hours after his death his cell phone continued to reach out to those he loved the most. Although his cellphone signals were responsible in leading the rescue team to Peck's remains, the cellphone itself was never found among the debris.
The mysterious calls were puzzling to the authorities. The 35 calls were indeed placed from Peck's cellphone. They were received intermittently by four family members on that September night, but who made the calls? The static on the other end of the line is indicative of a damaged cellphone, but who dialed the numbers? Is it possible that Charles Peck could have been reaching out to his loved ones from beyond - as a final goodbye? Perhaps we will never know the answers to these questions and this story will continue to remain a mystery, at least in this lifetime! Written by Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day
