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New Texas Giant opened April 22, 2011.<\/p>\n
2013 File Photo\/Staff<\/p>\n
It was the stuff of nightmares.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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On Monday afternoon, Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, a 42-year-old father, teacher and roller coaster enthusiast from Atlanta, boarded the Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia, a 20-year-old Swiss-made steel hyper coaster \u2014 a class of roller coaster that typically doesn\u2019t loop or invert but instead drops at high speeds to induce feelings of weightlessness. During the ride\u2019s final descent, he flew out his seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kariem\u2019s fellow riders later described seeing him bounce multiple times off the moving coaster and other passengers before landing on the roof of a haunted house attraction. Emergency workers pronounced him dead at the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe turned sideways, and he\u2019s flipping in the air. He comes down, and he slams down on our cart,\u201d one rider told media<\/a>. \u201cPeople reached out trying to grab him. Like everybody tried to save this man, and we couldn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The horrific death came as Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which operates dozens of parks around North America, was already dealing with the fallout from new allegations<\/a> from passengers who were seriously injured on a ride in California, as well as persistent financial pressure<\/a> amid years of corporate reshuffling. The incident has cast a glaring new spotlight on both the company and the broader theme park industry, which is estimated at over $30 billion in the United States alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s also brought renewed attention to past amusement park tragedies \u2014 including one incident that occurred in North Texas over a decade ago, when a 52-year-old Dallas resident named Rosa Esparza died while visiting Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the average person goes to an amusement park,\u201d Frank Branson, a Dallas lawyer who represented Esparza\u2019s family, told The Dallas Morning News this week, \u201cthey\u2019re expecting a cheap thrill. And what they end up with many times is just their worst nightmare.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Following Kariem\u2019s death, Six Flags said in a statement that it was \u201cdeeply saddened by the guest incident\u201d and offered condolences. In response to an inquiry from The News on Wednesday, a representative declined an interview request but shared a brief statement emphasizing the company\u2019s commitment to safety. The Cobb County Police Department has said that its investigation remains ongoing, and that preliminary information indicates that Kariem was indeed ejected from the ride and collided with other riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Roller coaster deaths are exceedingly rare. One commonly cited study, which tracked fatalities across all parks in the U.S. between 1994 and 2004, found a total of 40 deaths. Industry groups say that in the past two decades, serious injuries and fatalities have become even scarcer as ride designs and maintenance practices have improved.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe odds of dying in a roller coaster are about one in 750 million,\u201d said Christopher Penney, an associate professor of management at the University of North Texas and theme park expert. \u201cYou\u2019re 7.9 million times more likely to die in a car accident on the way to go ride the roller coaster than you are to actually, you know, have a tragic situation like this on the roller coaster.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But the incidents, of course, do occasionally happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year a 32-year-old man, who used a wheelchair because of a spinal disability, died after hitting his head and falling unconscious during a ride at Universal Epic Universe in Orlando. In 2022, an unusually rough ride on X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California \u2014 the same coaster that prompted the new lawsuits this month \u2014 allegedly caused a fatal brain bleed in a 22-year-old man. In 2010, a 21-year-old woman fell to her death from a ride at the Dixie Landin\u2019 park in Baton Rouge.\u00a0<\/p>\n And there was July 19, 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Esparza, who had never been to Six Flags before, arrived at the park in the afternoon with her daughter, Aracely Esparza Segovia; Aracely\u2019s husband Ronal Segovia; and two of Esparza\u2019s grandchildren. The family had been in the park a couple of hours when they approached a ride called the Texas Giant.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was a well-known attraction. When it debuted in 1990, the $5.5 million ride was the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in the world. In the spring of 2011, a new version of the ride reopened after a $10 million construction project transformed it into a steel-wood hybrid. The remodel proved popular, earning the coaster a best new ride award from an industry group.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guests ride the Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas in 2013.<\/p>\n Staff Photographer<\/p>\n In the two years before Esparza\u2019s family visited, four injuries on the Texas Giant had been recorded with the Texas Department of Insurance, The News would later report, but there had been no high-profile concerns about the coaster\u2019s safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n Esparza and her daughter and son-in-law boarded the coaster around 6:45 p.m. Esparza Segovia\u00a0and her husband sat next to each other in the last row of the train\u2019s first car, and Esparza took a seat behind them in the first row of the second car, with the seat next to her unoccupied.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But even before the ride began, there was at least some sign of trouble. According to one park visitor who was waiting in line as\u00a0Esparza\u2019s group boarded, after Esparza took her seat she became concerned the ride\u2019s safety bar wasn\u2019t properly secured. \u201cShe was nervous and panicking,\u201d the rider, Carmen Brown, later told The News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n An employee monitoring the coaster, who had been on the job only four days, also had doubts about Esparza\u2019s safety bar, according to a later police report, believing it may not be tight enough. But the employee then checked the ride\u2019s control panel, where a green indicator light showed the restraint was secure.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Texas Giant was about one minute in when the coaster began its first major descent, a steep 147-foot drop. It was roughly halfway down when Esparza Segovia heard screaming behind her, according to a lawsuit later filed by the family.\u00a0Esparza fell 75 feet, the rough equivalent of a six-story residential building, and collided with a support beam before landing on the roof of a tunnel.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the ride came to a stop, and Esparza\u2019s family desperately tried to report the incident, Six Flags employees initially thought they were joking. A 911 operator was also initially baffled by Segovia\u2019s call, questioning whether Esparza was even in the park. When paramedics did arrive and located Esparza, they quickly pronounced her dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never discovered a day as long as this one,\u201d Amado Esparza, a son of Esparza\u2019s who was not in the park that day, wrote in Spanish<\/a> soon after on Facebook. He added that this mom\u2019s death was \u201clike a nightmare that I can not wake from.\u201d (The family did not speak directly to media outlets following Esparza\u2019s death, and could not be reached this week by The News.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In the wake of the incident, Six Flags temporarily closed the Texas Giant, as well as a similar coaster, the Iron Rattler, at its park in San Antonio. The death \u2014 which occurred on the same day seven people were injured<\/a> when a boat ride malfunctioned at Cedar Point in Ohio \u2014 brought new scrutiny to the company, including criticism that\u00a0it wasn’t being transparent<\/a> as it moved to investigate the incident internally. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n