Goliath Coaster Was Closed for Maintenance Before Fatal Fall

Six Flags’ Goliath roller coaster was reportedly taken out of service for maintenance just hours before a teacher was violently thrown from the ride.

Tina Christiansen and Emily Nguyen told the New York Post that they visited Six Flags Over Georgia on Monday afternoon and attempted to ride Goliath at about 1 p.m. They said park employees told them the attraction was closed for maintenance.

“They made an announcement over the intercom, first saying, ‘We’re experiencing delays,’ and then a few minutes later, they said, ‘We’re waiting for maintenance to get here,’” Christiansen recalled.

While they waited, the women watched a park employee carry out what appeared to be “a couple of maintenance runs” on the roller coaster.

“One guy rode it and he was in the front row by himself,” Nguyen said. “I remember us looking at each other, like, ‘You could not pay me enough to do that job.’”

“Like, yeah, it’s fun to ride roller coasters, but I wouldn’t want to be the one in charge of making sure that they work,” she added. “We literally had that conversation.” 

Only a few hours later, Hassan Kariem, 42, was violently thrown from his seat on the Goliath roller coaster in front of horrified riders.

Kariem struck the ride three times before police found him unresponsive behind a haunted house attraction installed for Halloween. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Four other people were taken to the hospital afterward with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

Investigators are working to determine what caused the fatal incident on Goliath, which has operated at the theme park since 2006. 

State officials and Cobb County Major Crimes detectives are examining the coaster’s lap-bar restraints, locking systems and computerized safety sensors as part of the investigation, Fox 5 reports.

Witnesses said the roller coaster’s restraints made a “weird clicking” sound before the train departed. Park employees reportedly checked the restraints “multiple times” on the car carrying Kariem.

Moments later, horrifying images showed him falling headfirst over fellow riders and off the coaster as families and young children looked on in shock.

Kariem was reportedly thrown from his seat near the ride’s final turn, hitting the roller coaster’s frame several times before landing on the ground. 

Logan Conner, who was riding in the same carriage, said passengers made “direct eye contact” with Kariem as he fell headfirst from the coaster. 

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Conner described seeing Kariem “levitating” beside the track before he struck the ride, with blood “splattered over everybody,” WXIA reported. 

When Christiansen and Nguyen later returned to the ride, they said they saw a crowd of people and the area near the rollercoaster closed off.

‘There was a security guard standing there and I walked up to him and I said, “Hey what happened?” thinking it wasn’t anything big, I was just curious,’ Nguyen said.

‘He was like, “I can’t tell you,” and I realized it must be something really serious for him to say it like that, it was very gruff.’

The two friends then noticed that people were crying and saw ambulances arriving at the park, before another parkgoer told them Six Flags was being evacuated because someone fell from Goliath.

‘I feel like we dodged a bullet by not being anywhere near when it happened, especially since that’s where we were going,’ Nguyen said. 

Six Flags has since closed the Goliath ride and shut down over 10 other rollercoasters across the country ‘out of an abundance of caution’ in response to the tragedy.

However, the company said Six Flags Over Georgia will re-open on Friday. 

Meanwhile, theme park expert Robert Niles told Channel2 that incidents in which a person is flung from a rollercoaster are incredibly rare.

Niles, the editor of ThemeParkInsider.com, told the outlet: ‘This wasn’t obviously a case of something wrong with the guest. That there may have been something wrong with the ride.

‘This isn’t an incident of somebody being on a coaster who shouldn’t have been on that coaster, given the boarding restrictions or health requirements. 

‘This sounds like a freak accident that we will definitely need to get the results from an investigation to fully understand.’ 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Six Flags for comment.