The four parkgoers injured and rushed to hospital when a rider fell to his dєatᩚh from a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia were children, cops said.
Technology teacher Hassan Kariem, 42, was killed when he was flung from the high-speed Goliath hypercoaster just before 4 p.m. on Monday at the park near Atlanta.
The four kids hurt in the tᩚraɢedy were taken to hospital in ambulances with non-life-threatening injuries, according to cops.
Hassan Kariem died after being flung from the Six Flags roller coaster. hassan-kariem/Linkedin
“Because they were all juveniles, no further information can be shared,” E.D. Smith, the Cobb County police public information officer, told The Post.
Cops said Wednesday that, after being called to the park at around 3:58 p.m., they found Kariem “unresponsive and not breathing” beneath the ride.
“Preliminary information gathered through witness and employee interview indicates Kariem was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling beneath the attraction,” Cobb County Police Department said in a statement.
The victim was found on a building inside the park and had “sustained fatal injuries,” according to a Cobb County Police Department incident report seen by ABC News.
Riders are escorted off the Six Flags Over Georgia roller coaster. 11Alive
He was at the park with family to celebrate his niece’s 13th birthday and was sitting next to her when he fell from the coaster, a relative told CNN.
“His final moments and words were with her,” the girl’s dad and brother of Kariem’s fiancée, Joshua Nelson, told the outlet.
“She called me crying after the ride ended stating Mr. Hassan fell off the ride.”
The Goliath roller coaster sits on the track after being shut down following a fatal incident at Six Flags Over Georgia in Cobb County. FOX 5 Atlanta
Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, a 42-year-old teacher from metro Atlanta, died after falling off the Goliath roller coaster at the Six Flags Over Georgia amusement park. NY Post Design
Six Flags supervisor KeJuan Taylor told CNN he was the first to find Kariem after he fell and that it had been “genuinely horrifying” to process the situation.
“I have not suffered any physical injuries but it has been on my mind very recently through these past days,” he said.
Six Flags said it would be reopening the park Friday, but Goliath will remain “temporarily closed,” a park spokesperson told ABC News.
Cobb County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, which is responsible for the safety of amusement park rides in the state, are investigating the accident.
