Rus Ozana, of Dracut, has ridden 1,246 different roller coasters around the world, most of them at least twice.
It all started at a now-defunct amusement park at Salisbury Beach, on a wooden coaster called The Comet. The ride was rickety yet hair-raisingly fast for a then 10-year-old Ozana, who was held in only by a small wooden lap bar, during a time before modern restraints like seat belts were introduced to rides.
“Let’s just say when the ride was over, they had to pry my hands off the bar to get me out,” the now-74-year-old said with a chuckle. “I was terrified before it, but after, it reinforced my desire to continue to ride because it couldn’t all be that scary. ... To me, there’s no such thing as a scary roller coaster.”
The Comet was demolished in 1975, but Ozana’s intense passion for coasters only grew, drawing him into a vast, thriving subculture of fellow enthusiasts — or thoosies, as they call themselves.
The world of rollercoaster enthusiasts was suddenly thrust into the spotlight when a man died on a coaster in Georgia earlier this month. The incident sparked a national conversation about ride safety and left the enthusiast community to face a sobering question: What do you do when your lifelong passion enters the mainstream because of a gruesome tragedy?
“I saw a couple of tweets saying something happened on a coaster in Georgia, but I didn’t believe it at first. It’s social media, you know,” said Marcus Browning, a 31-year-old enthusiast who co-hosts the RollerCoaster Rants YouTube channel. “But I checked the news, and my stomach dropped. The whole community is just left in utter shock, wondering how this could have happened.”
Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, a public school educator from Atlanta, died Oct. 12 after he was ejected from his seat on the 200-foot-tall Goliath coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. Four people were hospitalized with injuries, and others were left stranded on the coaster for over an hour while employees evacuated the area.
Neither police nor Six Flags have shared any information regarding how the incident happened. State authorities launched an investigation to ensure the park was following all proper procedures, CBS reported.
After the incident, Six Flags temporarily closed nine coasters in parks across the United States and Canada. The company announced last week that seatbelts would be added to select coasters — none in New England — and that independent engineers and inspectors had been hired to conduct safety reviews of its parks.
A Six Flags spokesperson told the Globe that no rides were closed at Six Flags New England, as the Agawam location does not have an attraction similar to Goliath. The spokesperson did not respond to questions about what makes a coaster “similar” to Goliath.
Six Flags New England once had its own Goliath, but it never reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to park records. Its most popular ride, Superman, spans 208 feet in elevation and 5,400 feet in length with a top speed of 77 miles per hour. That’s taller, longer, and faster than the Goliath in Georgia.
Superman malfunctioned in April, causing riders to be evacuated, but no injuries were reported. In 2004, a 55-year-old Connecticut man died after he fell out of his seat while riding Superman. Reports showed that employees had not checked that riders’ safety restraints were securely fastened.
In a subculture full of people who would jump at the chance to explain every detail of how and why a coaster works, Browning said, there was a remarkable lack of speculation in the community.
“Everyone was also collectively asking the same question: How could this happen? We know that roller coasters are usually safe, statistically,” Browning said. “They’re meant to be safe and they’re meant to be enjoyed. We’re all just sitting, waiting to hear what took place. I think I only saw speculation from outside of the enthusiast community.”
Browning is a member of American Coaster Enthusiasts, an organization connecting fans over their shared obsession with roller coasters. Ozana and Matthew Shostak both work for ACE as assistant regional representatives in New England.
The love Shostak, who grew up in Chelmsford, had of the classic 1999 video game RollerCoaster Tycoon became a fascination with the real-life “roller coaster wars,” where amusement park franchises faced off in a fierce competition to build the fastest, tallest, most thrilling coasters in the world.
Shostak, 42, said he has never feared for his safety on a coaster, citing the rarity of incidents. According to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, the chance of being seriously injured on a roller coaster in the US is one in 15.5 million rides taken. A 2024 survey of amusement parks in North America recorded 652 injuries on roller coasters out of an estimated 1.92 billion rides taken.
“It’s more dangerous driving to the theme park than it is on the roller coaster,” Shostak said.
Shostak said that being part of a community of enthusiasts is less about the literal coaster experience and more about the people along for the ride.
“These parks give us a fantasy world that we can step out of the real world and enjoy for the day,” Shostak said.
It’s a similar sentiment shared by Disney fans who find their escape at Disney parks, music fans at concerts, comic fans at conventions, and sports fans at games.
But sometimes, that fantasy world comes crashing down.
Browning said he imagined most enthusiasts shared the feeling of “inexplicable heaviness” in the wake of tragedy overtaking the conversation about their passion.
Browning was at Six Flags Over Georgia just a few months prior. His Oct. 1 video ranking coasters at the park placed Goliath at the top of the list. It’s a popular ride among enthusiasts, according to Browning and other content creators.
“My favorite thing in a coaster is the feeling you get, an adrenaline rush that you don’t get every day. In a ride, that’s airtime, and Goliath has a lot of airtime, which is why people like it,” YouTube creator Thomas Garner Jr. said. “I love... I loved that ride.”
Garner, a 21-year-old college student from Virginia, is known online as CoasterKingPOV. He primarily posts first-person footage of coaster rides recorded with his Meta glasses. After the news broke, he felt like he couldn’t post like usual; he made two videos recapping what few details were known about the incident.
Garner said that during his hundreds of coaster rides and his time working in merchandising at the Kings Dominion amusement park in Virginia, he never thought about the possibility of falling out. He said that the incident forced thoosies to look at coasters from the perspective of the general public.
“Enthusiasts have a lot of different opinions; many think they know everything about roller coasters, and that [the general public is] always wrong,” Garner said. “Of course we think all coasters are completely safe, but when you see something like this, it’s hard to look past.”
Garner said the incident in Georgia is challenging for enthusiasts to grapple with. A subculture so often divided by coaster opinions, he said, is now united by grief.
“We don’t want people to stop riding roller coasters, but, even for enthusiasts like myself, there’s a hesitation,” Garner said. “Would I ride Goliath right now if it reopened? I genuinely don’t know. I just hope we learn from this.”
Chloe Craft can be reached at chloe.craft@globe.com.