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Riders suffer brain injuries after riding Six Flags' X2 rollercoaster · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: Six Flags calls this their cutting edge, break all the
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  Speaker 1: rules roller coaster. But these two riders never imagined minutes
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  Speaker 1: after getting off the ride this summer, they would end
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  Speaker 1: up in the same hospital the very same week with
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  Speaker 1: similar brain hemorrhages. And they're not the only riders who
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  Speaker 1: say they've been hurt. A CNN investigation finds more than
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  Speaker 1: a dozen people who rode the X2 roller coaster at
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  Speaker 1: California's Six Flags Magic Mountain suffered serious injuries and hospitalizations
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  Speaker 1: over nearly two decades, including a 22-year-old who died. And
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  Speaker 1: the latest cases happened just weeks ago.
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  Speaker 2: It was seconds. You go in as yourself, and then
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  Speaker 2: when you come back, you're a medical emergency.
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  Speaker 1: This was from a roller coaster. Pam Gillen was at
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  Speaker 1: Magic Mountain with her daughter, Camille, celebrating her 16th birthday
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  Speaker 1: on July 5th. They boarded X2.
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  Speaker 3: We got off the car and we saw my mom.
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  Speaker 3: She looked lifeless. Not a thought behind her eyes, nothing.
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  Speaker 3: I was talking to her. Mom, mommy, please wake up. Mommy, mommy,
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  Speaker 3: it's okay, we're here. She had a brain bleed. Her
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  Speaker 3: mom had a really bad brain bleed.
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  Speaker 1: An ambulance rushed Pam from Six Flags to the hospital.
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  Speaker 1: where surgeons discovered what's called an acute subdural hematoma with
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  Speaker 1: brain compression. Surgeons cut her skull open to relieve the
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  Speaker 1: pressure on her brain.
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  Speaker 3: I was shocked. I was just, this is not okay.
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  Speaker 3: It wasn't okay for me to see my mom like that.
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  Speaker 3: It's my mom.
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  Speaker 1: How large is the incision?
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  Speaker 2: It's pretty long.
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  Speaker 1: While Pam Gillen fought in this hospital bed, X2 kept running.
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  Speaker 1: 25-year-old Naomi Greer Wilkinson had no idea what had just happened.
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  Speaker 1: Six days after Pam's injury, Naomi got on the X2
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  Speaker 1: roller coaster. She collapsed after she got off the ride.
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  Speaker 1: What had happened to her brain?
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  Speaker 4: The jarring had damaged part of her brain and it
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  Speaker 4: had begun to bleed.
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  Speaker 1: She was rushed to the same hospital. Joshua Wilkinson and
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  Speaker 1: Artemis Greer are Naomi's parents.
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  Speaker 4: I do remember one of the surgeons storming through the
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  Speaker 4: ER and yelling, how many is it this month? They've
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  Speaker 4: got to shut that ride down. He was furious.
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  Speaker 1: This is Naomi. And just like Pam Gillen, she had
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  Speaker 1: emergency brain surgery.
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  Speaker 4: They sat us down and said, she is at the
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  Speaker 4: end of life. And I just, I didn't have any thoughts.
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  Speaker 4: I was totally blank. We leaned over her and said, Naomi.
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  Speaker 4: And she fluttered her eyelid. We looked at each other
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  Speaker 4: like she's in there, like she's there.
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  Speaker 1: Naomi, a healthy, vibrant young woman who loves cats and
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  Speaker 1: the arts, remains in the hospital with an uncertain future.
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  Speaker 4: Naomi should have never.
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 4: Ever in a million years even had the option to
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  Speaker 4: get on that ride. It's absolutely insane.
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  Speaker 1: Why did they leave it open?
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  Speaker 4: Revenue. There's no other explanation.
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  Speaker 1: Six Flags says what makes X2 different from other roller
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  Speaker 1: coasters is this. The seats spin 360 degrees forwards and
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  Speaker 1: backwards independently around the track. Riders plummet 200 feet at
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  Speaker 1: speeds up to 76 miles per hour with two so-called
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  Speaker 1: raven turns or half loops that turn into sheer drops.
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  Speaker 1: Doctors who treated both Naomi and Pam say the severe
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  Speaker 1: brain injuries were the result of a traumatic, rapid acceleration-deceleration
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  Speaker 1: event experienced while on the X2 ride. Court cases alleging
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  Speaker 1: serious brain injuries from X2 date back years. Christopher Hawley
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  Speaker 1: died after riding the X2 four years ago. A coroner's
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  Speaker 1: report found he died of blunt head trauma during a
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  Speaker 1: park ride accident. Six Flags didn't answer CNN's questions, but
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  Speaker 1: the company's court filings have stated the ride went through
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  Speaker 1: daily inspections and a normal rider using the ride as
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  Speaker 1: instructed would not have traumatic brain injury.
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  Speaker 3: It's greed that keeps this thing going.
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  Speaker 1: Lawyer Christopher Ballone represents both Naomi and Pam's families. No
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  Speaker 1: ride should ever be dangerous enough for anyone that they're
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  Speaker 1: coming off of it with severe intracranial bleeding. More than
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  Speaker 1: 3 million people visit Magic Mountain each year. But on
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  Speaker 1: this day, we find X2 is temporarily closed. Six Flags
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  Speaker 1: tells us it hasn't run since shortly after Naomi Greer
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  Speaker 1: Wilkinson was hurt. You're looking at a very long road.
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  Speaker 4: It could be six months. It could be two years.
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  Speaker 4: It could be five years. I don't know. This is
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  Speaker 4: the hardest thing a human being could go through.
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  Speaker 2: I remember everyone so excited that I could walk. I
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  Speaker 2: have headaches every day, fatigue. After doing simple things, I
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  Speaker 2: won't be 100% because it's brain damage. Sometimes I just, like,
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  Speaker 2: feel really down because I'm not me anymore.