A Six Flags parkgoer who fell to his death from a roller coaster had reportedly fainted before his restraint “snapped,” according to his niece, who was riding beside the educator.
Hassan Kariem, 42, was aboard the high-speed Goliath hypercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, near Atlanta, shortly before 4 p.m. Monday when he was ejected from the ride. He died, and four other parkgoers were injured.
Kariem’s niece had been celebrating her 13th birthday at the park when she called her father in a panic after the incident.
“What she told me on that phone call, she said he fainted, or he passed out,” Joshua Nelson, the girl’s father and Kariem’s brother-in-law, told WSBTV Thursday.
“They went up and down, up and down, up and down. It went up again, his latch snapped or came loose, and he fell. She told me he fell off the rollercoaster,” Nelson said.
The girl also told her father that she did not know where her uncle was after he fell from the ride. Kariem was a beloved technology teacher at Wesley International Academy.
Nelson then called Kariem’s wife, Eboni, who had been waiting outside the attraction. She knew something was wrong but had not yet learned what had happened, according to the outlet.
Soon afterward, Kariem’s wife heard authorities announce that someone had died. She immediately feared the victim was her husband.
Nelson said the girl was not physically injured in the frightening incident.
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According to Six Flags, the Goliath opened in 2006 and reaches speeds of 70 mph and heights of 200 feet during its approximately three-and-a-half-minute run.
Cobb County police said Wednesday that officers found Kariem “unresponsive and not breathing” beneath the attraction.
“Preliminary information gathered through witness and employee interview indicates Kariem was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling beneath the attraction,” the Cobb County Police Department said in a statement.
Four children sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were transported to a hospital, police said.
“Because they were all juveniles, no further information can be shared,” E.D. Smith, a Cobb County police public information officer, told The Post Thursday.
Six Flags supervisor KeJuan Taylor told CNN that he was the first person to find Kariem after the fall, calling the experience “genuinely horrifying.”
“I have not suffered any physical injuries but it has been on my mind very recently through these past days,” Taylor said.
Six Flags said the park would reopen Friday, while Goliath would remain “temporarily closed,” a park spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
The death is being investigated by the Cobb County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire.