FATAL RIDE

Family of Roller Coaster Disaster Victim Speaks After Shock Death

The man was at the Georgia park to celebrate his niece’s birthday.

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A girl who watched her uncle fall to his death from a Six Flags roller coaster has shared her account through her father. Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem was ejected from the Goliath roller coaster while sitting beside his niece at the Georgia park, where the family was celebrating her birthday. The hypercoaster plunges more than 200 feet and hits at least 70 mph, and several others were hurt in the accident, NBC News reported. “He said that this was one of his favorite rides,” her father, Joshua Nelson, told ABC News Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV. Retelling his daughter’s version, Nelson said Kariem’s “latch, I guess, snapped or came loose and he fell.” Nelson believes it may have been a freak accident, “but the other part of me questions... could this have been prevented?” Georgia’s insurance and safety fire commissioner is investigating, as is the ride’s Swiss manufacturer, Bolliger & Mabillard. No cause for the incident has been released. A Six Flags spokesperson said the company is “cooperating fully with local authorities as they complete their investigation.” Six Flags has since paused operations on nine comparable coasters across its North American parks “out of an abundance of caution,” per ABC. Kariem spent more than 12 years at Atlanta’s Wesley International Academy, where he managed IT and coached the robotics team.