Six Flags Over Georgia shut down its “Goliath” roller coaster for maintenance due to a wasp’s nest just hours before a teacher fatally fell out of the ride, a parkgoer told The Post.
Hassan Kariem, 42, was killed and four children were injured when he was ejected from the high-speed hypercoaster shortly before 4 p.m. on Monday at the park near Atlanta.
Two other teachers who were at the park told The Post they tried to get on Goliath some three hours earlier — but couldn’t because it was closed for maintenance with a park worker 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,” coaster enthusiast Renee Byrd, from Valdosta, said.
The 52-year-old Byrd, a mother of two, eventually rode the Goliath later that day, roughly 20 minutes before the accident that killed 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 maybe somebody just said there was,” she said.
She suggested the park worker seen riding alone in one of the carts earlier may have been looking for the nest.
Byrd, who says she’s ridden the Goliath hundreds of times, also said the claims by riders on the coaster with Kariem, who said they heard “weird clicking” and had their restraints checked “multiple times,” weren’t 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,” she said.
“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 due to reopen Friday at 6 p.m. but Goliath will remain “temporarily closed,” a park spokesperson told ABC News Wednesday.
The Cobb County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit and Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, which is responsible for the safety of amusement park rides in the state, are both probing the fatal fall.
Cops said they found Kariem “unresponsive and not breathing” beneath the ride, after being called to the park around 3:58 p.m. on Monday.
“The victim was located on a building inside the park near the inner service road,” an incident report obtained by The Post said.
Kariem was thrown from the ride and hit other patrons during his fall until he landed beneath the massive ride, according to police.
He was at the park with his family to celebrate his niece’s 13th birthday and was sitting next to her when he fell from the coaster, a relative told CNN.
“His final moments and words were with her,” the girl’s dad and brother of Kariem’s fiancee, Joshua Nelson, told the outlet.
“She called me crying after the ride ended stating Mr. Hassan fell off the ride.”
