5 rise from coffins at Six Flags, earn free passes
♦ As if the tickets and money weren’t enough, the contestants get to keep their coffins.
Five bodies rose from their coffins on a recent Sunday evening at Six Flags, but they were not zombies, vampires or any other creepy-crawlies from the park’s annual Fright Fest.
They were the winners of Six Flags over Georgia’s firstever Coffin Challenge. They climbed out of their resting places after 30 hours, thereby winning $300 in cash, two 2019 gold season passes and two express haunted house passes. They also get to keep the coffins.
“It was really a wonderful social experiment,” said park spokeswoman Divinia Mimms-Puckett. “Even after we counted down to zero, some of the contestants were afraid to get out. They weren’t sure it was really real because they couldn’t see the clock.”
Six contestants entered the contest, but one was eliminated early on when he didn’t make it back to his coffin in time after the first bathroom break.
That was Demetrius Odom, a tower technician from Atlanta.
His coffin caper got off to a rough start when he arrived the scene of the contest just minutes before it was set to begin on Oct. 13. The 30 hours in the coffins expired on Oct. 14.
The other coffin residents brought blankets and pillows with them to make the unlined coffins more comfy, and Odom was the only contestant lying in a bare coffin.
“I got here a little late and I had to rush for the gate, so all my stuff is still in the car, and I have to wait to get that on a break,” he told the MDJ shortly after entering his coffin.
Mimms-Puckett said Odom was disqualified because he was not fully in his coffin when the break timer ended.
Mimms-Puckett said the winning group, which included Cobb resident Sara Corte, a Spanish translator from Marietta, said the biggest challenges were boredom, discomfort and being woken up by an air horn every hour, even throughout the night.
The winners employed a variety of strategies to deal with the boredom and discomfort.
Corte kept her head covered with a pillow. Others scrunched down to the bottom of their coffin to get out of the sun.
Another spun in his grave, rotating slightly every few minutes with the idea that it would be easier on his body.
Six Flags locations around the country will be hosting their own Coffin Challenges this year.
Mimms-Puckett said this year’s event at Six Flags over Georgia proved popular — over 400 people applied for a spot in a coffin, and large crowds of park-goers gathered in front of the coffins to cheer or jeer the contestants.
She said the park looks forward to hosting the second Coffin Challenge next year.