Man who witnessed deadly roller-coaster fall at Six Flags prays it was 'just a freak accident'

As It Happens6:42Man who witnessed deadly rollercoaster fall at Six Flags prays it was 'just a freak accident'

When Nick Mendenhall decided to surprise his 14-year-old son with a trip to Six Flags, he had no idea the day would take a tragic turn.

A 42-year-old man fell to his death on Monday while riding the Goliath roller-coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, north of Atlanta. Police say he was thrown from his seat and struck other patrons before landing below the ride.

Six Flags has since closed Goliath and nine similar roller-coasters at six of its North American parks — including two at Canada's Wonderland north of Toronto — while investigators work to determine what went wrong. La Ronde in Montreal has also temporarily closed a roller-coaster that was acquired under the park's previous Six Flags ownership. 

Mendenhall had just ridden the Goliath with his son about 15 minutes before the fatal fall, and was watching nearby when it happened. He told As It Happens guest host Dave Seglins what he saw. Here is part of their conversation.

Nick, how are you and your son holding up after what happened? 

We're good. I'm still processing. There's been a lot of phone calls and messages and texts [from] people that want to talk to me about everything. And so I'm trying to process it while talking through it. I think it's in some ways, it's a healthy thing. In some ways, I think, it's little bit of a challenge. But I'm good. I am good. 

And my son is doing fine.... He didn't see what I saw. He was in line for another ride when it happened. So he did not physically see it.

Can you tell us about the ride a little? Have you ridden the Goliath before? 

Yes, probably 20 times in the last eight weeks. We have passes and we go often. And it's one of our favourite rides in the park. We actually had gotten off the ride about ... 10 to 15 minutes before the accident happened. 

Was there anything in particular that brought you and your son to the park yesterday? 

My son had asked me several times if I would take him to the park on Monday because he didn't have class. And I had told him, no, I didn't think so, I was working. 

So I kind of surprised him. I started my work day a little bit early, and at about 1:30, I said, "Hey, bud, let's go to the park." 

I was on phone calls and working, and he and I were just hanging, but he was fine with me working. And so when everything happened, I was on a call with a co-worker as I saw it all happen, and I said, "Hey, I gotta get off the phone. A man just fell off the roller-coaster."

WATCH | Canadian roller-coasters closed:

Wonderland, La Ronde suspend some rides after Six Flags death

6 hours ago|

Duration

1:54

Can you tell us what you saw from your spot on the ground? 

I can, and I want to try to word this in a way that's respectful and respectable. 

I'm standing, I don't know, 30 or 40 feet away from the track, probably. I think I was probably 50 to 100 feet from him. I mean, I was close enough that I knew that he was a middle-aged guy. I knew it was not a kid. I knew there was only one person. 

The roller-coaster car comes over a little hill that people were referring to as a bunny hop.... It's basically the last one of the ride, right before the ride ends … and I was just watching the car as it came across the track. 

I saw the man come up out of his seat, I mean, almost as if you were hovering because he's moving at the same speed as the car. And his hands are kind of out in front of him. And he, almost in a diving motion, went head-first down into another car. And I was just praying, you know, "God, let this man stay in that car." I knew it was the very end of the ride and I'm thinking, "Man, if they can just hold on to him, maybe he's OK."

As the car coasted up the last little hill, it makes a hard left-hand turn into a straightaway where it breaks and then is the end of the ride. And as it made that turn, I saw him come out of the coaster altogether and fall. 

At that point, I only had about a few feet of visual reference because there's a fence between where I was standing and where the track was. There's quite a bit of distance and a fence. So I saw him fall. I could not see him land or anything like that and, quite frankly, I'm glad I didn't. And more than anything, I'm glad my son was in line for another ride and didn't physically see it happen. 

Just horrific. 

Very, very much. 

WATCH | Fatal roller-coaster fall in Georgia:

One dead, several injured after incident on a Six Flags roller-coaster in Georgia | Hanomansing Live

October 12|

Duration

3:04

What went through your mind as you're thinking you're just watching the ride and, suddenly, this person flies out? 

I think I was trying to process 150 things at one time. I don't really know what I was thinking. You know, obviously there's an instant adrenaline rush. I mean, I was shaking a little bit. 

But I turned. There was a woman there that called 911, and so I didn't call 911, because sometimes the worst thing you can do is have 30 people call 911 for the same problem. There was a park employee walking up the hill. I said something to the park employee, like: "Did you see what just happened?" And they had no idea, the employee that was walking uphill. And I said: "Someone just fell out of Goliath."

I called my wife who was on her way to the park with my other three kids and herself.... I didn't want her to come to the park at that point. 

I grabbed my son. He's in line. I go up to the entrance of that line and I call his name and I say, "Hey, I need you to come here a minute." 

And, you know, [it's] very calm. No one's really panicking on the ground because I don't think very many people saw what happened.… I'm not sure anyone else really saw it the way that I did.

Do you have any sense of what went wrong? 

None. And I don't want to speculate. So many people were posting that it was the park employees not doing their job, and they were saying just things that were just, there's no way anyone could know. 

We go so often and I've never experienced a feeling of unsafe behaviour from the employees. I've never thought that they weren't doing their job. I mean, most of these are high school kids and young adults that are working their jobs for the summer and … we need to be worried about what they saw and what they experienced from a trauma perspective, not pointing fingers at them. 

I hope it comes out what the cause was. And, man, I hope and pray that it was just a freak accident and it was no one's fault. 

But even if it was, man, to be pointing fingers and saying things like that, that those kids will probably hop on social media and they'll see, is just, it's so sensationalist. It's so just heartbreaking.