The Six Flags parkgoer who fell to his death while riding a roller coaster had fainted before his “latch snapped,” according to his niece, who rode alongside the beloved educator.
Hassan Kariem, 42, was riding the high-speed Goliath hypercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia near Atlanta when he was thrown from the ride shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, killing him and injuring four other parkgoers.
Kariem’s niece, who was celebrating her 13th birthday at the park, called her dad in a panic after the ride.
“What she told me on that phone call, she said he fainted, or he passed out,” Joshua Nelson, the girl’s father and Kariem’s brother-in-law, told WSBTV Thursday.
“They went up and down, up and down, up and down. It went up again, his latch snapped or came loose, and he fell. She told me he fell off the rollercoaster.”
The girl told her dad she didn’t know where her uncle, a beloved technology teacher at Wesley International Academy, was after he fell from the ride.
Nelson then called Kariem’s wife, Eboni, who was waiting outside the attraction and knew something was wrong but did not yet know what had happened, the outlet reported.
Moments later, Kariem’s wife heard authorities announce that someone had died. She immediately feared the victim was her husband.
The girl was OK after the terrifying incident, her father added.
The Goliath, which opened in 2006, reaches speeds of 70 mph and heights of 200 feet during its roughly three-and-a-half-minute ride, according to Six Flags.
Cobb County police said Wednesday that officers found Kariem “unresponsive and not breathing” beneath the attraction.
“Preliminary information gathered through witness and employee interview indicates Kariem was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling beneath the attraction,” the Cobb County Police Department said in a statement.
Four children suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to a hospital, according to police.
“Because they were all juveniles, no further information can be shared,” E.D. Smith, a Cobb County police public information officer, told The Post Thursday.
Six Flags supervisor KeJuan Taylor told CNN he was the first to find Kariem after the fall, describing the experience as “genuinely horrifying.”
“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 the park would reopen Friday, but Goliath would remain “temporarily closed,” a park spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
The Cobb County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire are investigating the death.
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