Woman dies after plunging from roller coaster

ARLINGTON, Texas -- An Arlington police sergeant says a woman who died while riding a roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in North Texas fell from the ride.

Sgt. Christopher Cook told The Associated Press on Saturday that police believe the woman fell Friday at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, and there appears to have been no foul play.

He says police, fire and emergency medical services responded to the park about 6:45 p.m. Friday in reference to a woman who had fallen from a train car while riding a roller coaster. He says she was pronounced dead at the scene.

She had been riding the Texas Giant. Dubbed the tallest steel-hybrid coaster in the world, it reaches 14 stories high, drops 79 degrees and banks 95 degrees.

Carmen Brown told The Dallas Morning News she was waiting in line to get on the ride when the accident happened and witnessed the woman being strapped in.

"She goes up like this. Then when it drops to come down, that's when it (the safety bar) released and she just tumbled," Brown, of Arlington, told the newspaper. "They didn't secure her right. One of the employees from the park -- one of the ladies -- she asked her to click her more than once, and they were like, `As long you heard it click, you're OK.' Everybody else is like, ‘Click, click, click.'

"Hers only clicked once. Hers was the only one that went down once, and she didn't feel safe, but they let her still get on the ride," Brown said.

Six Flags said the ride will be closed as the investigation continues, and a concert scheduled for Saturday was canceled.

The Texas Giant can carry up to 24 riders. It first opened in 1990 as an all-wooden coaster but underwent a $10 million renovation to install steel-hybrid rails and reopened in 2011.

When the car that the woman had been riding in returned to the loading zone, two people got out and were visibly upset, Rockwell resident John Putman told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"They were screaming, ‘My mom! My mom! Let us out, we need to go get her!" Putman told the newspaper.

Six Flags Over Texas opened in 1961 and was the first amusement park in the Six Flags system. It is 17 miles west of downtown Dallas.

The park's first fatality happened in 1999. A 28-year-old Arkansas woman drowned and 10 other passengers were injured when a raft-like boat on the Roaring Rapids ride overturned in 2 to 3 feet of water.