Charles E Peck was among the passengers on the commuter train carrying 225 riders that collided with a freight train on September 12, 2008, at 4:22 p.m. in California’s San Fernando Valley.
It was one of the deadliest accidents California has ever seen, leaving 25 people dead and 135 injured.
Charles E Peck had worked as a customer service agent for Delta Airlines at Salt Lake City International Airport for 19 years but was looking for a change. Following his divorce and meeting someone new, he believed a new job would complete his new life. At the time of the deadly crash, he was traveling to LA for a job interview.
When they heard of the accident, Peck’s fiancé, Andrea Katz, and his family, who lived around the LA, headed to the site.
His body was recovered from the wreckage 12 hours after the crash.
However, during the first 11 hours, his loved ones received a total of 35 calls from him. He called his brother, his stepmother, his fiancé, his son, and his sister. All they could hear was static. When they called back, their calls went straight to voicemail, which was rather strange.
Still, the calls from Peck gave them hope that he could still be alive but trapped in the wreckage.
“You look at your phone and it’s Dad!” Peck’s son, CJ, said in a 2008 interview with Daily Breeze. “He can’t be dead.”
His sister, Barbara Lopez added: “For us, it was just hope. We had no idea he had already perished.”
Although the calls went straight to voicemail, Peck’s son still left numerous messages, hoping his dad would hear them. He assured him they all loved him and that help was on the way.
Eventually, Peck was located through the signal of his mobile phone. Before the fatal crash, he had only one stop left.
The strangest thing of all was that the coroner determined Charles E Peck died upon impact and there was no chance he was alive when the crash happened, not even for a short period of time, let alone for 11 hours, the period during which all the calls to his loved ones were made.
How those calls were made remains a mystery until this very day, especially because the phone couldn’t be recovered.
Some believe that the phone started malfunctioning and called those on the speed list, while others consider it a paranormal experience.
However, his family found solace in those calls with his son saying it was a message from his father “letting us know he’s not suffering.”
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