A 25-year-old woman has spent months on a ventilator after riding the X2 rollercoaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, part of a wave of lawsuits alleging the ride caused brain damage to more than 100 people.
Naomi Greer-Wilkinson collapsed after riding the X2 at the Valencia, California, theme park in July and underwent emergency brain surgery. Months later, she remains in a coma, unable to breathe on her own, while her parents say they were told to prepare for end of life. Her case is now one of a series of lawsuits filed by Dordick Law against Six Flags, alleging the high-speed ride has inflicted severe traumatic brain injuries on rider after rider, and that the park knew about the danger for years.
The X2, billed as the world's first "fourth-dimension" rollercoaster, hits speeds of nearly 80 miles per hour while flipping its seats 360 degrees. Only two other rides of its kind exist, one in China and one in Japan. Medical reports reviewed by CNN have linked the ride to more than a dozen injuries and hospitalizations over the past two decades. Six Flags shut the ride down on the evening of July 12 and has kept it closed since.
Six days before Greer-Wilkinson's collapse, Pamela Guillen, a 40-year-old California mother, rode the X2 while celebrating her daughter Camille Marquez's 16th birthday. Guillen stepped off the ride feeling confused and disoriented, then collapsed. Surgeons removed part of her skull to relieve pressure from a brain bleed. She was placed in a coma and spent nearly a month in the hospital.
Her daughter Camille Marquez described the moment to the Daily Mail:
"We got off the cart and we saw my mom. She looked lifeless. Not a thought behind her eyes, nothing."
Guillen has since returned home. About two weeks after surgery, she relearned how to walk and talk. But recovery has been partial. She told reporters she still suffers headaches every day and fatigues after simple tasks.
Guillen put it plainly:
"Sometimes I just feel really down because I am not me anymore."
Greer-Wilkinson's parents, Joshua Wilkinson and Artemis Greer, say their daughter boarded the X2 just six days after Guillen's collapse. The result was nearly identical: a traumatic brain injury, emergency surgery, a ventilator. Doctors confirmed the injuries were caused by what the New York Post reported as a "traumatic rapid acceleration-deceleration event" experienced on the ride.
But unlike Guillen, Greer-Wilkinson has not recovered. Her father told CNN that the jarring motion "damaged part of her brain and it had begun to bleed." Her mother, Artemis Greer, recalled the chaos in the emergency room:
"I do remember one of the surgeons storming through the ER and yelling: 'How many is it this month? They've got to shut that ride down!' He was furious."
Months later, the 25-year-old remains in a respiratory hospital, still on a ventilator. Her parents say they were told to prepare for end of life.
Greer recounted the weight of it simply: "Naomi should have never, ever in a million years, even had the option to get on that ride. It's absolutely insane."
Greer-Wilkinson and Guillen are not the only plaintiffs. Michael Wick, an attorney, says he rode the X2 during a family outing and suffered injuries so severe he required two brain surgeries. He claims he is now unable to practice law due to disability. Dordick Law represents Wick alongside the other plaintiffs.
Attorney Gary Dordick said at a press conference this week that more than 100 people have come forward claiming severe brain injuries from the ride. He announced plans to file additional lawsuits against Magic Mountain and accused the park of long-standing indifference.
"They don't assume a risk of death or catastrophic brain damage for some family fun."
Dordick alleged that Magic Mountain "has known about the dangers of this ride for years," accusing the park of operating under the assumption that riders who voluntarily board a rollercoaster have accepted whatever happens to them.
The current lawsuits are not the first time the X2 has faced serious legal scrutiny. In 2022, Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old college graduate, rode the coaster with his brother and cousin. He died approximately ten hours later. A coroner's report found he had suffered blunt head trauma during a "park ride accident."
His father, William Hawley, told Fox 11 that a surgeon described the severity of his son's injuries in stark terms: the X2 "hit his head so hard that it had basically ruptured his brain."
The Hawley family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Magic Mountain LLC and S&S Worldwide Inc., the replacement coaster train supplier. Last month, the family reached a settlement with Magic Mountain and a separate accord with S&S Worldwide. The terms of both agreements remain undisclosed.
Six Flags issued a brief statement to ABC7 confirming the X2 has been closed since the evening of July 12 and declining to address the lawsuits. "It is our policy not to comment on pending litigation," the park said. The statement offered no timeline for reopening the ride and no acknowledgment of the injuries alleged in court filings.
That silence leaves a long list of unanswered questions. No regulatory body, neither California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health nor any federal agency, has been publicly identified as having opened an investigation into the X2 incidents. The specific safety concerns or prior incident reports that Dordick Law alleges Six Flags was aware of have not been detailed publicly. And the medical reports CNN reviewed linking the ride to injuries over two decades have not been released for independent review.
What is public is the pattern: a ride that hits 80 miles per hour and flips its passengers upside down, a string of brain injuries spanning years, a wrongful death case that ended in a quiet settlement, and a park that kept the gates open until the lawsuits piled too high to ignore.
When a thrill ride sends more than 100 people to attorneys and puts a 25-year-old on a ventilator, "assumed the risk" stops sounding like a legal defense and starts sounding like an excuse.
