COASTER TESTED IN DEATH MAGIC MOUNTAIN THRILL RIDE REMAINS CLOSED.

Byline: Naush Boghossian and Holly Edwards Staff Writers

VALENCIA - State inspectors tested the Goliath roller coaster Monday at Six Flags California's Magic Mountain, searching for any malfunction in the ride on which a 28-year-old Fontana woman died during the weekend.

On Sunday, a day after Pearl Santos' death, officials in the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said she died from a ruptured brain aneurysm triggered by the ride. But officials backpedaled Monday, saying it would be up to six weeks before the autopsy results are final.

``What we're saying is the information released wasn't wrong, but it was premature,'' said Craig Harvey, chief of operations for the coroner. ``As a result of the things the doctor noticed during the examination, further studies have been ordered, and (determining) the cause of death has been deferred.''

Andy Gallardo, spokesman for the amusement park, read a prepared statement regarding the coroner's comment, and he called the roller coaster safe.

``No one's told us the ride is unsafe,'' Gallardo said, noting that millions have ridden Goliath since it debuted last year. ``It would be speculation on all our parts to assume the ride is unsafe.''

The gravity-defying thrill ride remained closed pending the results of the testing by inspectors from the state Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

``We can't reopen the ride until we're done with collecting all the information, and there's a lot of information that we need to get still,'' state spokeswoman Susan Gard said. ``We're still in the fact-finding stage, and no conclusions have been drawn yet.''

While the initial investigation turned up no problems with Goliath, Santos' death rekindled debate over the safety of rides that soar to new heights at high speed, then plunge hundreds of feet through falls, corkscrews and loops.

Goliath, which features a height of 255 feet and a longer drop as riders head at 85 mph into a subsurface tunnel, opened last year. The three-minute ride includes high-speed turns, huge spiral curves and zero- gravity drops. Gallardo did not know the measure of the ride's gravitational acceleration.

This new type of ride has been studied to determine whether there is a link between G-force and brain injuries.

While no studies have conclusively linked riding a roller coaster with brain damage, experts say the changes in acceleration and G-force experienced by riders could be dangerous for people with medical conditions.

``Certainly, if you have a cerebral aneurysm, it could rupture at any time, so this case could have been a coincidence,'' said Neil Martin, a neurosurgeon at UCLA Medical Center. ``On the other hand, it's certainly conceivable that the stress created by the G-forces induced by the ride could have caused the aneurysm to rupture.''

Nationwide, there were 15 roller coaster fatalities from 1987 to 1999, all caused by mechanical failures, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Coaster riders have also reported brain and eye hemorrhages, loss of consciousness, headaches and dizziness, according to the commission.

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has proposed setting upper limits on the speed and G-force of amusement park rides, but so far has been unsuccessful, said David Moulton, Markey's press deputy.

``As things stand now, there is no limit,'' Moulton said. ``In some cases, we're really pushing the margin of safety.''

However, researchers who study the effects of speed and gravity on Air Force fighter pilots say humans have a five-second margin of safety before losing consciousness when exposed to rapid acceleration or deceleration.

On roller coasters, researchers say, riders are exposed to high G-forces for just one or two seconds.

While fighter pilots experience G-force up to nine times normal, coaster riders experience G-force four to five times normal, said Bill Albery, a biomedical engineer at the U.S. Air Force Research Lab in Dayton, Ohio.

``The brain has a five-second reserve of oxygen, so the average person wouldn't even notice a loss of blood to the brain during that time,'' Albery said. On roller coasters, riders are exposed to zero gravity during the free fall from the coaster's peak, Albery said, followed by intense gravitational force downward when the coaster begins its next ascent.

``The blood in the body is pushed into the lower torso away from the eyes (and) brain, causing a loss of blood pressure in the brain,'' Albery said.

He said coaster riders who strain their necks and scream are actually serving a biologically necessary function.

``The straining and screaming help to keep the blood pressure up,'' he said. ``We had one guy who was able to black out by forcing himself to relax on a roller coaster.''

In the Goliath testing, two state inspectors arrived at 8:15 a.m. Monday to conduct a comprehensive inspection.

In the morning, the ride was running with empty cars. Gard said the inspectors are testing all components of the ride, including the mechanics, the smoothness of operation, the restraints and the seat belts. They also visually inspected the tracks.

Officials in the state agency also requested all maintenance and testing records from Goliath and are conducting interviews with witnesses and the ride's operator.

``We want to make sure that malfunctioning of the ride is not the cause of the death and that it did not contribute to the death,'' said Gard. ``Right now, we're not necessarily saying that the ride is unsafe.''

The results will not be made public until the investigation is complete.

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(ran in SAC edition only) The Goliath ride on which a woman died Saturday at Six Flags California's Magic Mountain operates in a state test Monday.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News