{"id":671841,"date":"2026-05-29T09:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671841\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:28:15","slug":"8-students-rescued-after-getting-stuck-on-pleasure-pier-roller-coaster-fire-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671841\/","title":{"rendered":"8 students rescued after getting stuck on Pleasure Pier roller coaster, fire officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

GALVESTON, Texas (KTRK) — Crews have rescued eight students who were stuck for hours on Pleasure Pier’s Iron Shark roller coaster in Galveston on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"SkyEye13<\/p>\n

SkyEye13 showed riders being rescued from a stopped roller coaster at Galveston’s Pleasure Pier on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Galveston Fire Department Chief Mike Varela Jr. said that at 5:37 p.m., firefighters received a call of eight riders stuck in the Iron Shark roller coaster.<\/p>\n

Houston ISD confirmed that the eight riders involved were students, who were participating in a field trip organized by Energized for STEM Academy Middle School and STEM Academy High School.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, HISD sent a statement that read in part:<\/p>\n

“We are grateful that all students, staff, and chaperones are safe. School administration is in direct contact with the families of all students who were on the trip.”<\/p>\n

Eyewitness News reviewed video from our live camera in Galveston and found that the ride stopped at 5:21 p.m.<\/p>\n

The roller coaster on the pier, Iron Shark, is the tallest and has a 100-foot vertical lift hill.<\/p>\n

SkyEye13 showed that the amusement park was closed during the rescue operation. Galveston Fire Department’s Tower 1 engine occupied space on the pier to allow first responders to conduct the rescue.<\/p>\n

Landry’s Inc., which owns Pleasure Pier, confirmed that the ride experienced a malfunction but stopped as it was designed to do in a situation like this. The statement read in part:<\/p>\n

“Our focus immediately shifted to the safety of our guests. Therefore, we contacted the Fire Department to assist, ensuring all guests were safely removed from the ride. A thorough inspection of the ride will take place before it is placed back in service.”<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Eyewitness News is continuing to gather facts.<\/p>\n

Watch live breaking news coverage from ABC13 on our 24\/7 streaming news channel.<\/p>\n

Submit a tip or story idea to ABC13<\/p>\n

Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story you think we should cover? Send it to ABC13 using the form below. If you have a video or photo to send, terms of use apply.<\/a> If you don’t, just hit ‘skip upload’ and send the details.<\/p>\n

“<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GALVESTON, Texas (KTRK) — Crews have rescued eight students who were stuck for hours on Pleasure Pier’s Iron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[293123,178327,23,4,3,178328,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-671841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-293123","tag-abc13-live-stream","tag-america","tag-breaking-news","tag-news","tag-streaming-updates-from-houston-texas","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}