Michael Mauger's List: Calls from beyond

The family of Charles Peck, knowing he was on the train, watched the news with dread waiting for news of his fate--and then they got a call. Then another, and another, all from Charles's cell phone.

 

One family member after another was called, with Charles's cellphone sending out 35 calls in total, at which point, ghost calls or not, we're sure they just started letting the things go to voicemail.

At 9:08PM nearly five hours after the crash, Peck’s fiancé Andrea Katz received one of those calls. But when she answered, all she heard was static. Despite hearing nothing from the other side she told him to hang on and that help was on the way.

 

Whenever they tried to call him back all the calls were routed to the voicemail.

 

When the rescue efforts stopped at the scene and the rescue workers turned to the grim task of recovery another call came from his phone and the search crews decided to trace it. They found it had come from the first train, so they went back to scour the rubble in hopes of finding him alive. The last phone call came from Charles Peck’s phone at 3:28AM, almost an hour before they found his lifeless body.

Los Angeles Metrolink crash of September 2008
 
 This month’s horrible Metrolink train crash brought upon a dark mood to Angelinos. From the country’s economic uncertainties, to the dim light of hope with the elections coming up, us Angelinos felt as if things could not get any worse.
 
 The Daily Breeze has this interesting story on one of the Metrolink’s victim. Chuck Peck was among the 25 dead in the Los Angeles Metrolink crash on the 12th of September 2008. His family, knowing that Chuck was on the train that faithful evening, kept getting calls from his cell phone. No voice was on the other side of the line, no audible voices. All they could hear was static on the other side of the line.
 
 Throughout the night, Chuck’s sons, brother, stepmother, sister and fiancee all got the phone calls after the crash had been reported. Chuck’s son believed his dad was alive and trying to contact them. Chuck’s son CJ kept yelling into the phone: “We love you, Hang in there. They are coming to get you.“‘

   

Posthumous cell phone calls

 

"On 12 September 2008 at 4:22 p.m.in California’s San Fernando Valley, a commuter train carrying 225 riders collided at a combined speed of 83 mph with a freight train run by a crew of three. In what came to be known as the Chatsworth crash, …25 died. One of the deceased was 49-year-old Charles E. Peck, a customer service agent for Delta Air Lines at Salt Lake City International Airport."

 

"As firefighters worked to rescue survivors, family members said Peck’s cell phone kept calling his son, his brother, his stepmother, his sister and his fiancee. But when they answered all they heard was static. And when family members called back, the calls went straight to voice mail.

 

In all, family members say they received about 35 calls from Peck’s cell phone through the night.”