For eight teenagers on a year-end school trip, a roller coaster ride turned into a three-hour lesson in patience, courage and trust.
The students were left dangling about 30 metres in the air when a roller coaster at Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier suddenly malfunctioned and stopped mid-ride on Thursday.
What followed was a painstaking rescue that drew national attention and tested the skills of firefighters who found themselves facing a situation unlike any they had encountered before.
“I got scared. I started feeling lightheaded for a few hours. My body started hurting, and it still hurts,” said eighth-grader Frank Mendoza, one of the students stranded on the ride.
The students, who attend Energized for STEM Academy, were visiting the amusement park as part of an end-of-year field trip.
According to classmates, the coaster had been operating normally earlier in the day. Some students had already completed the ride when it unexpectedly came to a stop with eight teens on board.
“Everybody was getting on normally until they got on and started again, and everybody was worried about them,” student Dayana Sigaran said. “We were trying to contact their parents and stuff.”
As the hours passed, firefighters from the Galveston Fire Department climbed into the air to reach the stranded riders one by one.
Mendoza said the rescuers did more than bring equipment.
“They told us to stay calm and that everything was going to be okay,” he said.
Those words helped steady frightened riders as crews worked through a complicated operation high above the ground.
Capt. John Fearrington said the rescue required firefighters to perform a type of extraction they had never had to carry out before.
“They were pretty frightened, but they’re pretty brave,” Fearrington said. “You reassure them every step of the way and tell them what you’re going to do.”
The rescue became even more challenging when a key piece of equipment normally used to help people descend from elevated locations was unavailable, forcing crews to adapt their plans on the spot.
“We were starting to look at what rigging we needed … how we were going to address it, but, luckily, everything fell perfectly,” Fearrington said.
Each rider had to be carefully secured before being moved.
“The goal was to harness them, but you also have to tether them to something secure. You need something to stop them if they fall off,” he said. “Every step of the process you have to check, double check, triple check.”
After more than three hours suspended in the Texas sun, all eight students were safely lowered to the ground without serious injuries.
For Mendoza, the experience transformed what was supposed to be a celebration marking the end of the school year.
“It was for the end of the school year,” he said. “The last thing we do before school ends.”
The day after the rescue, Mendoza said he was still dealing with pain in his back, neck and thighs while being checked by doctors.
Meanwhile, firefighters reflected on a rescue that could have gone very differently but ended exactly as they had hoped.
Despite the equipment challenges and the long hours the students spent stranded above the pier, every rider made it down safely.
One student told ABC13 it had been her first roller coaster ride.
It may also have been her last.
She said she had never wanted to get on a roller coaster in the first place.
The amusement park has since reopened, but the coaster involved remains closed while inspectors work to determine what caused the malfunction.
