Hassan Kariem was at Six Flags Over Georgia to celebrate his niece’s 13th birthday and was seated next to her on the Goliath roller coaster when he fell to his death, family say. “She said … his latch, I guess, snapped or came loose,” the girl’s father, Joshua Nelson, tells WSB, recounting the day the family’s world turned upside down. He says Kariem was excited to be at the amusement park and described the Goliath coaster as “one of his favorite rides.” Kariem, a local teacher, fell from the coaster, reportedly striking other riders before landing on the roof of a haunted house.
Nelson says he hopes his brother-in-law felt no pain in his final moments as his niece reported that he had “passed out” before his restraints apparently failed. He adds that part of him feels “it was a freak accident,” but another part questions, “could this have been prevented?” One woman has reported that her son rode Goliath roughly an hour before Kariem’s death and found a seat restraint repeatedly became unlocked before he changed seats, per PBS News Hour. Eleven roller coasters across the US and Canada are closed as police, state regulators, and coaster manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard investigate what happened.