Two women required emergency brain surgery after riding the X2 roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in July, the latest in a pattern of serious injuries and deaths linked to the ride over more than two decades.

Pamela Guillen, a 40-year-old Hawaii resident, and Naomi Greer-Wilkinson, a 25-year-old from Los Angeles, both suffered severe brain hemorrhages within six days of each other after riding the X2 at the Valencia, California, theme park. Guillen had part of her skull removed to relieve brain swelling. Greer-Wilkinson remains in a coma on a ventilator. The ride has been closed since July 12, and Six Flags has offered no public explanation for the shutdown.

The incidents came to light through a CNN investigation reported by the Daily Mail, which revealed that doctors treating both women attributed their injuries to the X2 in an email viewed by CNN. The doctors described the cause as "a traumatic rapid acceleration-deceleration event experienced while on the X2 ride." The X2 reaches speeds of nearly 80 miles per hour and flips riders' seats 360 degrees around the track. Only two other roller coasters of its kind exist anywhere in the world, one in China and one in Japan.

Guillen went to a birthday party and came back a medical emergency

Guillen was visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain for her daughter's 16th birthday when she rode the X2. She reportedly struck her head against the headrest several times during the ride. After exiting, she lost consciousness and was transported by ambulance to a hospital, where surgeons removed part of her skull.

She did not fully regain consciousness for about two weeks, the New York Post reported. She had to relearn how to walk and talk. She now reports daily headaches and exhaustion from simple tasks.

Guillen told CNN the experience transformed her in an instant:

"It was seconds. You go in as yourself and when you come back you are a medical emergency."

She added: "Sometimes I just feel really down because I am not me anymore."

Her daughter, Camille Marquez, described what she saw when the ride ended. "We got off the cart and we saw my mom. She looked lifeless. Not a thought behind her eyes, nothing," Marquez told CNN. "She had a brain bleed. My mom had a really bad brain bleed."

Six days later, a 25-year-old collapsed on the same ride

Six days after Guillen's injury, Greer-Wilkinson rode the X2 and collapsed afterward. She underwent emergency brain surgery and has not regained consciousness. She remains on a ventilator.

Her father, Joshua Wilkinson, told CNN that "the jarring had damaged part of her brain and it had begun to bleed."

Her mother, Artemis Greer, recounted a scene at the emergency room that raises sharp questions about what the hospital, and the park, already knew. She said she remembered a surgeon reacting with visible anger when Greer-Wilkinson arrived:

"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."

Greer also said her daughter should never have been allowed on the ride in the first place. "Naomi should have never, ever in a million years, even had the option to get on that ride," she told CNN.

That an ER surgeon apparently recognized the X2 as a recurring source of brain injuries, and that the ride remained open long enough for a second woman to be critically hurt days after the first, is the kind of institutional failure that demands answers. Families trust that a ride open to the public has been deemed safe. That trust now looks badly misplaced. Brain injuries of the kind described in these cases can be devastating and permanent, as other recent cases have shown.

X2 has been linked to deaths and dozens of injuries over two decades

The July 2026 incidents are not isolated. Medical reports reviewed by CNN show more than a dozen reports of injuries and hospitalizations linked to the X2 over the past two decades. The New York Post reported that the ride has been connected to over 70 complaints of head or neck injuries in a three-year period alone.

In 2022, Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old college graduate, rode the X2 with his brother and cousin. He died approximately ten hours later. A coroner's report found he suffered blunt head trauma during a "park ride accident." His brother, Alex Hawley, described the ride in stark terms, telling Fox News: "It was very rough. It just jerked us all around. It just jolted us all the way forward and then our heads just swung all the way back into the headrest."

Christopher's father, William Hawley, told Fox 11 that a surgeon compared his son's injuries to shaken baby syndrome, saying the X2 "hit his head so hard that it had basically ruptured his brain."

Attorneys for the Hawley family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Magic Mountain LLC and S&S Worldwide Inc., the company that supplied replacement coaster trains for the X2. The family recently reached a settlement with Magic Mountain and a separate accord with S&S Worldwide. The terms of both agreements remain undisclosed.

The X2's record goes back even further. In 2010, Hilda Farias, 28, died after riding the coaster. Doctors believed an existing brain abnormality ruptured because of the ride's intensity. Her family later settled a lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.

A cardiovascular expert explains why the ride is so dangerous

Dr. Chauncey Crandall of the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic explained the medical mechanism behind how extreme roller coasters like the X2 can cause brain injuries. "What is happening is this rapid acceleration and deceleration, and then rapid rotation causes the brain internally to move throughout the cavity of the skull, and it can cause injury to the blood vessels," Crandall told Newsmax.

Crandall warned that the risks are especially acute for certain riders. "The bottom line is that this can be a very dangerous ride. And if you're elderly or you're on a blood thinner, I wouldn't go on it," he said.

California regulators have opened an investigation into the incidents, Newsmax reported. But the fact that the X2 accumulated a trail of injuries, hospitalizations, and at least two deaths before regulators stepped in raises an obvious question: what took so long?

Six Flags has declined to explain why the ride stayed open

Six Flags has not answered the most basic question families and the public deserve to hear: why did the X2 remain open after Guillen's injury, allowing Greer-Wilkinson to ride it six days later? CNN posed that question directly. Six Flags declined to answer. A park spokesperson confirmed only that "the ride remains closed at this time."

The Daily Mail also contacted Six Flags for comment. No response was included in their reporting.

The pattern is difficult to dismiss. A woman dies in 2010. A young man dies in 2022. Dozens of head and neck injuries pile up over the years. Then two women suffer catastrophic brain hemorrhages within a single week in July 2026, and the park's public posture amounts to silence and a closed gate.

Settlements with undisclosed terms may resolve lawsuits, but they do not resolve the underlying safety questions. They do not explain what modifications, if any, were made to the X2 between the 2010 death, the 2022 death, and the 2026 injuries. They do not explain who, if anyone, was tracking the accumulating injury reports. And they do not explain why a ride with this record was still welcoming families through the turnstile.

Pamela Guillen went to a theme park for her daughter's birthday. Naomi Greer-Wilkinson went for a day out in her own city. Both left on stretchers with brain injuries that changed their lives. When a ride keeps sending people to the operating room, the question is not whether it should be shut down, it is why it was not shut down sooner.