Christopher Hawley’s family is taking Six Flags Magic Mountain to court over the 22-year-old’s death after a ride on X2, turning a fatal amusement park injury into a jury case set for September 8 in Chatsworth. Hawley collapsed shortly after riding the coaster on June 23, 2022, and died the following day after being taken to a nearby hospital.
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner ruled the death an accident and said Hawley died from blunt head trauma sustained in a park ride accident. That finding sits at the center of the new legal fight, because the family is suing Six Flags Magic Mountain, the ride manufacturer and several park employees over what it says was a fatal injury that should not have happened on a ride open to the public.
Hawley had been at Six Flags Magic Mountain with his younger brother Alex and their cousin when he rode X2. Alex said the coaster was extremely rough, describing how it jerked riders around and jolted them forward so their heads swung back into the restraints. His mother said she remembered hearing Alex say, “Christopher collapsed, and he’s not waking up,” before the family’s day at the park turned into an emergency.
The family’s account also points to what treating surgeons saw after Hawley was rushed to the hospital. William said one surgeon compared the internal brain damage to shaken baby syndrome, saying the ride had struck Hawley so hard that it ruptured his brain. That description is far more severe than the medical examiner’s short ruling, and it is why the case now turns on whether the ride was simply dangerous in hindsight or whether it was defective in a way that should have been fixed or disclosed.
Six Flags has said only that the ride remains closed and has been closed since the evening of July 12th. The company has not offered the kind of explanation the family is seeking, and that silence leaves the jury with the hardest question in the case: whether X2’s design, operation or warnings were enough for a ride that Hawley never walked away from.
