An extreme roller coaster in Southern California has long drawn thrill-seekers from around the world. A recent CNN investigation shows the ride has been linked to multiple brain injuries.
Six Flags calls the X2 their cutting-edge, break-all-the-rules roller coaster.
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Two riders never imagined that, minutes after getting off the ride this summer, they would end up in the same hospital the very same week with similar brain hemorrhages.
They're not the only riders who say they've been hurt.
A CNN investigation finds more than a dozen people who rode the X2 roller coaster at California's Six Flags Magic Mountain suffered serious injuries and hospitalizations over nearly two decades, including a 22-year-old who died.
The latest cases happened just weeks ago.
"It was seconds," said Pamela Guillen, who was injured on the coaster. "You go in as yourself, and then when you come back, you're a medical emergency."
Guillen was at Magic Mountain with her daughter, Camille Marquez, celebrating her 16th birthday on July 5. They boarded X2.
"We got off the cart and we saw my mom," Marquez said. "She looked lifeless. Not a thought behind her eyes. Nothing. I was talking to her, 'Mom, please wake up. Mommy, it's ok, we're here.' She had a brain bleed."
An ambulance rushed Guillen from Six Flags to the hospital, where surgeons discovered what's called an acute subdural hematoma with brain compression.
Surgeons cut her skull open to relieve the pressure on her brain.
"I was shocked," Marquez said. "I was just — this is not ok. It wasn't ok for me to see my mom like that."
While Guillen was in the hospital, X2 kept running.
25-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson had no idea what had just happened. Six days after Guillen's injury, Greer-Wilkinson got on the X2 roller coaster.
She collapsed after she got off the ride.
"The jarring had damaged part of her brain, and it had begun to bleed," her father, Joshua Wilkinson, said.
Greer-Wilkinson was rushed to the same hospital.
"I do remember one of the surgeons storming through the ER and yelling, 'How many is it this month? They've gotta shut that ride down,'" said Artemis Greer, her mom. "He was furious."
Just like Guillen, Greer-Wilkinson had emergency brain surgery.
"They sat us down and said, 'She is at the end of life,'" Greer said. "I just — I didn't have any thoughts. I was totally blank. We leaned over her and said, 'Naomi,' and she fluttered her eyelid."
"We looked at each other like, 'She's in there,'" her father said.
The healthy, vibrant young woman who loves cats and the arts remains in the hospital with an uncertain future.
"Naomi should have never, ever, in a million years even had the option to get on that ride," her mother said. "It's absolutely insane."
According to Six Flags, the X2 is different from other roller coasters because the seats spin 360-degrees forward and backward independently around the track. Riders plummet 200 feet at speeds of up to 76 miles per hour with two so-called "raven turns," or half-loops that turn into sheer drops.
Doctors who treated both patients say "their severe brain injuries ... were the result of a traumatic rapid acceleration-deceleration event experienced while on the X2 ride."
Court cases alleging serious brain injuries from X2 date back years.
Christopher Hawley, 22, died after riding the X2 four years ago. A coroner's report found he died of "blunt head trauma" during a "park ride accident."
Six Flags didn't answer CNN's questions, but the company's court filings said the ride "went through daily inspections" and a "normal" rider using the ride "as instructed" would not have a traumatic brain injury.
"It's greed that keeps this thing going," said Christopher Bulone, an attorney representing both riders' families.
"No ride should ever be dangerous enough for anyone that they're coming off of it with severe intracranial bleeding," Bulone said.
More than 3 million people visit Magic Mountain each year. X2 is now temporarily closed.
Six Flags said it hasn't run since shortly after Greer-Wilkinson was hurt.
"I remember everyone so excited that I could walk," Guillen said. "I have headaches every day [and] fatigue after doing simple things. I won't be 100% back to how I was because it's brain damage. Sometimes I just feel really down because I'm not me anymore."
Multiple lawsuits CNN has seen have settled before going to trial, including the wrongful death suit of Hawley.
California's Occupational Safety and Health Division oversees amusement park ride operations but did not respond to CNN's questions about X2's history and did not say how it was allowed to reopen.