Transistors with very thin gate oxides are protected against oxide failure by cascading two or more transistors in series between an output pad and ground. The intermediate source/drain node between the two cascaded transistors is usually floating during an ESD test, delaying snapback turn-on of a parasitic lateral NPN transistor. This intermediate node is used to drive the gate of an upper trigger transistor. A lower trigger transistor has a gate node that is charged by the ESD pulse on the pad through a coupling capacitor. When the coupled ESD pulse turns on the trigger transistors, the trigger transistors turn on a silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) that is integrated with the trigger transistors.