8 Students Rescued After Hours Stuck on Roller Coaster

A school trip to a Galveston amusement park turned into a four-hour ordeal on Thursday for eight Houston-area students stuck at the top of a towering roller coaster. The kids' car on the Pleasure Pier's Iron Shark ride halted on its steep initial climb overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, leaving them suspended almost 100 feet off the ground under the hot sun as crews figured out how to get them down, report the Guardian and New York Times. Firefighters eventually raised a long ladder to the stalled car and used harnesses to guide each student onto the ladder and down to safety; FOX 26 Houston has video of part of the rescue.

Galveston's fire chief said the students were uninjured but understandably rattled, and that they were all checked for dehydration. "Everyone seems to be doing pretty good," he noted at a press conference, per KHOU. The park's chief operating officer said in a statement that an equipment issue triggered the ride's emergency stop "as designed," adding that the focus immediately shifted to safely removing riders. The district that organized the outing said all students, staff, and chaperones were safe, and the park pledged a full inspection before the Iron Shark reopens.