On Monday afternoon, a rider was thrown from Goliath, a 200-foot roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia in Mableton. Cobb County police identified him as Hassan Kariem, 42, of Atlanta. He worked at an Atlanta charter school as its IT manager, technology teacher and robotics coach. Police say he struck other riders before he fell beneath the ride. That night, Six Flags closed nine similar coasters at six other parks "out of an abundance of caution." SeaWorld Orlando shut its own Mako coaster too. Six Flags shares fell about 14% on Tuesday. Police and Georgia's state ride inspectors are investigating, and no official has said what went wrong. The Georgia park reopens Friday, but Goliath will stay closed.

Roller Coasters Are Still Remarkably Safe (Doug Perovic, Kathryn Woodcock, Dennis Speigel)

Engineers and industry veterans say ejections almost never happen and that safety checks usually work.

The odds of a serious injury are tiny. The industry group IAAPA puts the odds of a serious injury on a U.S. park ride at 1 in 15.5 million rides. "When you look at the safety record for roller-coasters, I mean, the numbers of these incidents are so, so small," Doug Perovic, a materials science and engineering professor at the University of Toronto, told CBC.

A parts failure would take several things breaking at once. Kathryn Woodcock studies ride safety as a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. She told CBC that an ejection is "stunningly rare." She said that if parts did fail, several of them would have had to fail at the same time.

Industry veterans say parks are among the safest places you can be. Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant and past president of IAAPA, told AP that "with the checks and balances that are put in place, theme parks are really one of the safest places to be on the planet." Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com, told WSB-TV, "This sounds like a freak accident," though he said "there may have been something wrong with the ride."

The state says its inspectors did their job. John F. King is Georgia's insurance and safety fire commissioner, and his office inspects the state's rides. At a debate Tuesday, he said his inspectors had "inspected every one of those" rides before the season started. He said he hopes to report back that "these rides are safe."

But Nobody Is Watching the Parks Closely Enough (Brian Avery, David Bertozzi, Ken Martin)

Ride-safety experts say no federal agency oversees theme parks, so the rules change from state to state.

No federal agency checks theme park rides. The Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't cover rides at fixed parks like Six Flags, so each state sets its own rules. Ken Martin, a ride-safety analyst, told NewsNation that there's no federal agency "that would make them tell us what happened." Georgia doesn't post its ride inspection reports online.

Low odds don't help the person who got hurt. Brian Avery, a University of Florida professor who studies ride safety, told AP the country needs more federal rules. He asked who is making sure parks train their staff and watch their rides to the industry's standards. "Statistics don't really mean much when you're the victim," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Some states give inspectors no power at all. David Bertozzi is president of the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials. He told the New York Post that roller coasters have "gotten a little more risky" over the years. He said operators in a state with no ride rules "don't have to listen to me because I have no authority to shut them down."

And One Lap Bar May Not Be Enough (Michael Haggard, Brian Avery, Mark Lopez-Trigo)

Lawyers and safety experts want backup restraints, and they want parks to check how riders fit the seats.

The ride holds riders in with a single lap bar. The bar pulls down over the legs and waist, and there's no seat belt. Summer Bates rode Goliath earlier that day. "It just didn't feel secure and tight," she told AP. No official has said the restraint failed. Still, Avery told CNN, "If you have your primary fail, what are you left with? Yeah, nothing."

A lawyer wants a backup restraint on every coaster. Michael Haggard has represented the family of Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old who fell to his death from an Orlando drop tower in 2022. He told reporters that Monday's victim "would be alive today if you had dual restraint systems."

Experts say parks should also check how riders fit the seats. Avery told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that parks aren't "enforcing weight restrictions like we should be." Martin told NewsNation that riders who don't sit right in the seat put themselves at risk. No investigator has said that fit played a role in Kariem's death.

Closing nine more rides suggests Six Flags doesn't know the cause yet. Mark Lopez-Trigo, a Florida personal-injury attorney, told Fox News that closing nine other coasters "tells you that the company itself does not yet know what caused this."

Where This Lands

Perovic and Woodcock say ejections almost never happen, and Georgia's commissioner says his inspectors checked the rides. Avery asks who is making sure parks train their staff and watch their rides. Bertozzi says inspectors in states with no ride rules can't shut a ride down. Haggard wants a backup restraint on every coaster. Investigators haven't said what failed. The Georgia park reopens Friday with Goliath still closed, and Six Flags hasn't said when the other nine coasters will reopen.

Sources