Six Flags Over Georgia temporarily halted its “Goliath” roller coaster for maintenance after a parkgoer was told workers were dealing with a wasp nest—just hours before a teacher was fatally thrown from the ride, according to a witness who spoke with The Post.
Hassan Kariem, 42, died and four children were injured when he was ejected from the high-speed hypercoaster shortly before 4 p.m. Monday at the amusement park outside Atlanta.
Two teachers visiting the park told The Post they attempted to ride Goliath about three hours earlier but found it closed for maintenance. At the time, a park employee was conducting a test run.
“I was there at the same time, and the ride op told me the ride was down because of a wasp nest,” said Renee Byrd, a coaster enthusiast from Valdosta.
Byrd, 52, a mother of two who has ridden Goliath hundreds of times, later boarded the coaster herself—approximately 20 minutes before the fatal accident involving Kariem.
“I didn’t see any wasps when I rode, so I guess they got rid of it—or maybe there wasn’t one and somebody simply said there was,” she said.
Byrd speculated that the park employee seen riding alone in one of the coaster’s cars earlier may have been searching for the nest.
She also said reports from riders who were on the train with Kariem— including claims that they heard “weird clicking” and saw restraints checked “multiple times”—did not strike her as unusual.
“The ride ops have to unlock the entire row sometimes or multiple rows in one train when a large person’s restraint won’t click down all the way,” Byrd said.
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“The clicking and unlocking was making sure the large guest’s restraint locked, and every time it un-clicks for the other guests.”
Six Flags Over Georgia is scheduled to reopen Friday at 6 p.m., but Goliath will remain “temporarily closed,” a park spokesperson told ABC News on Wednesday.
The Cobb County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and the Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire are investigating the fall. The state agency oversees amusement-ride safety in Georgia.
Police said they found Kariem “unresponsive and not breathing” beneath the ride after responding to the park at approximately 3:58 p.m. Monday.
“The victim was located on a building inside the park near the inner service road,” according to an incident report obtained by The Post.
Kariem was thrown from the coaster and struck other patrons as he fell before landing beneath the towering ride, police said.
He had been visiting the park with his family to celebrate his niece’s 13th birthday and was seated beside her when he fell, a relative told CNN.
“His final moments and words were with her,” Joshua Nelson, the girl’s father and the brother of Kariem’s fiancée, told the outlet.
“She called me crying after the ride ended, stating, ‘Mr. Hassan fell off the ride.’”
