More details are coming out about the man who died on a Six Flags roller coaster on Oct. 12.
Forty-two-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem was killed after he fell from the 200-foot-tall Goliath rollercoaster at a Six Flags location in Georgia. He was riding the rollercoaster with his son at the time before falling, smashing into multiple coaster cars, and then plummeting to his death.
His wife and daughter watched the roller coaster from the ground. He somehow slipped out of his lap restraint and went tumbling, eventually landing on the roof of a haunted house.
Kariem was a technology teacher and robotics coach at Wesley International Academy in Atlanta, who’d been at Six Flags on a vacation trip with family. He survived cancer, not once, but twice — with the final stint being in 2018 — plus a serious bout with COVID-19. Three weeks before the rollercoaster incident, Kariem survived a fiery car accident with his 10-year-old daughter. They were both unharmed.
Atlanta Public Schools released a statement about Kariem to NBC News, describing him as “a cherished member of the Wesley International Academy and APS families whose presence and impact will be deeply missed by our students, staff, and all those whose lives he touched."
In the wake of Kariem’s incident, Six Flags decided to shut down its nine large “gigacoasters,” like the Goliath, across North America “out of an abundance of caution.”
Goliath opened in 2006 and reached top speeds of 70 mph during the ride. It’s thought to be the tallest roller coaster in the state of Georgia.
