New witness testimony sheds light on devastating Six Flags tragedy

Fox - 5 Atlanta
11 followers
Oct 14, 2026
AI Generated·May contain errors
Video Summary
AI GeneratedA 42-year-old educator, Hassan Kareem, was tragically killed after being ejected from the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. The incident has sparked concerns over ride safety, leading to the temporary closure of similar coasters across North America and prompting discussions regarding the lack of federal regulation for amusement park rides in the U.S.
We're going to start you off with some news,
and it's a story that, of course, we've been
following now for several days.
We are learning more about the man tragically killed
at Six Flags over Georgia.
Hassan Kareem was ejected from Goliath.
That's a roller coaster there on Monday.
The 42-year-old was an educator visiting
the park with his partner and her family.
Kareem was both a teacher and worked in IT at Wesley International.
His family says the 42-year-old
was passionate about both teaching and technology.
His family says that his niece was riding with Kareem
when he was ejected from Goliath.
She was not hurt.
Now, Kareem's family calls him a class act
who loved his partner and her daughter, raised as his own.
They say when he wasn't helping young people learn,
he would love to debate and cook his famous lasagna for family dinners.
They, of course, cannot believe Kareem,
who beat cancer twice, by the way, lost his life in this way.
So I hope I'm really devastated
by this because it just happened out of the blue.
It happened like how it happened
and you wouldn't ever expect nothing like that.
He loved kids. It's important to him having a kid.
I don't he doesn't have any biological kids,
but his stepdaughter is his daughter.
Yeah, sounds like just a loving person.
And the family had a message for people sharing or posting videos
or images of the accident saying, please take them down.
They say seeing those only increases the pain they're already dealing
with. Now, students are not in class at Wesley International
because this week is Atlanta Public Schools fall break.
Now, this tragedy impacting more than just the family of the victim.
Of course, people were there and they watched it happen.
Take a listen to one man who saw it all went now,
saw it as it went down with his child.
Watch this man come up out of his seat and go forward.
You know, his body motion went forward
and then he came down headfirst back into the roller coaster car.
And then the roller coaster car kind of continues its path.
up a small hill and then as it turns to the left
which is the very end of the ride it goes back
into the to the cart barn where you get on and off the ride
but on that in in that curve where
it turns to the left i saw him come out
and off the ride altogether oh my goodness just chilling
to listen to that so of course
the incident has prompted safety experts to weigh in while local
investigators and park officials say they
are not sure how the man ended up falling out of his seat
experts say there are several things that might have caused
that error adding it is possible the
incident could change the way amusement park goers approach
these types of thrills these are
extreme machines and there's a lot of moving parts
a lot of components and a lot of things
have to go right each and every time to provide
the best experience possible for the rider
this is a big time highly uh observed event
and as a result of that i think you have a lot of
people questioning uh do i want to go
to the parks right now do i want to ride these rides
uh and rightfully so i mean i think we need
to take a step back every once in a while in the
industry and assess where we are with things
and are our standards adequate yeah i mean a lot of
questions indeed. So Six Flags has temporarily
closed nine similar coasters at parks across
the country and Canada in response to that death.
And according to Georgia's Office of Insurance
and Safety Fire Commissioner,
which oversees annual ride inspections, investigators are,
quote, conducting an in-depth
and comprehensive review of what happened. Now, roller coasters
and other rides at major amusement parks
are not federally regulated here in the U.S. That
might surprise you. Instead,
that responsibility falls to the states, despite some lawmakers
repeatedly pushing for federal oversight in recent years.
And maybe this will have an impact on that
too. We'll keep you posted.
This story, of course, continues to develop.
