FOX 13 Tampa Bay reporter Evan Axelbank says a teenage boy in Inverness is dead and another is fighting for his life after a hand-dug hole – or tunnel – collapsed on top of them.
Evan Axelbank reports the incident happened at a park near Live Oak Lane and Twin Lake Drive, around Sportsman’s Park in Citrus County.
From the way Axelbank tells it, this wasn’t a storm, a car crash, or some freak mechanical failure.
It was two kids, doing something that probably felt harmless, until the ground turned into a trap.
Two Weeks Of Digging In “Sugar Sand”
Evan Axelbank says the boys had been digging in the sugar sand near Sportsman’s Park for about two weeks, coming back and forth from homes close by.
That detail matters, because it means this wasn’t a one-time impulse where they scooped a shallow pit for five minutes and walked away.
It sounds like a running project – something they returned to like it was a secret fort, a tunnel, a mission.
Evan Axelbank describes it as either a hole or a tunnel, and he emphasizes it got deep enough that the boys “didn’t realize how heavy the sand would be.”
That’s the cruel part about sand. It looks soft and forgiving, but when it collapses, it acts more like wet cement than beach fluff.
Axelbank says eventually the sand did collapse, and when it did, it came down on them completely.
Buried Four To Five Feet Down
Evan Axelbank reports deputies said the boys were four or five feet underneath, fully covered by sand by the time first responders arrived.
That’s not “stuck.”
That’s buried.
And buried doesn’t leave a lot of time for luck to show up.
Evan Axelbank says responders had to dig them out, and it took about a half hour to reach them. Thirty minutes is a painfully long time when someone can’t breathe.
Even if you’ve never thought about it before, this kind of situation makes the danger obvious: sand doesn’t just block movement, it blocks air, it presses on the chest, and it steals oxygen quickly.
Axelbank also notes deputies believed the boys were digging with “some kind of shovels,” which adds to the picture of how serious the digging had become.
Not just hands in the dirt – tools, depth, and a tunnel shape that can collapse without warning.
Names, Friendship, And A Family’s Shock
Evan Axelbank reports a GoFundMe set up by the family identified the teens as George Watts and Derek Hubbard, and said they were best friends.
Axelbank describes them as kids “just exploring the neighborhood together,” the kind of line that hits hard because it sounds so normal.
This wasn’t a story about kids trying to be reckless for attention.
It reads like kids being curious, trying to build something, probably proud of how far they’d gotten.
Then the structure fails once, and childhood snaps into tragedy.
Axelbank reports that one boy died at the hospital, while the other was taken in very critical condition to a hospital in Gainesville.
He also says both boys were students at Inverness Middle School, and deputies characterized it as “kids being kids,” having fun in their neighborhood.
That phrase is true, and it’s also what makes it unbearable. Because the whole point of “kids being kids” is that it’s supposed to be safe enough to survive.
The Moment The Parents Knew Something Was Wrong
Evan Axelbank reports the boys’ parents realized something was wrong when the kids didn’t come back for lunch.
That detail feels small, but it’s actually the hinge of the entire story.
Lunch is a normal marker in a normal day.
When lunch comes and the kids don’t, the brain starts flipping through possibilities—lost track of time, riding bikes, at a friend’s house, phone dead.
Then parents search. And Axelbank says when they searched the park, they only found the collapsed hole.
That’s the kind of image that would stop your heart. A pile of sand where you know your child had been working, and a silence that doesn’t fit the scene.
Axelbank says that discovery is when the parents called first responders. From there, it became a rescue that was also, heartbreakingly, a race against physics.
A Neighbor’s Words Capture The Community Mood
In Evan Axelbank’s report, neighbor James Suidam describes how the community reacted.
Suidam says they’re praying for the family and that anyone who needs something in the Sportsman’s Park community will get help.
He also repeats that it will “take everybody,” and calls the situation a tragedy on multiple levels.
Suidam’s words, as Axelbank reports them, sound like what people say when they can’t find language big enough.
When something happens that doesn’t feel like it belongs in a neighborhood park, people reach for prayer, food trains, hugs, anything.
Because “sorry” doesn’t do anything, and nobody knows what else to do.
And honestly, this is where communities usually show their best side.
Not because it fixes it, but because standing alone in grief is worse.
The School Response And The Weight On Other Kids
Evan Axelbank reports that grief counselors are available at Inverness Middle School to help classmates deal with what happened.
That’s important, because tragedies like this don’t just hit parents.
They hit every kid who knew them, every friend who walked the same halls, every student who now sees “digging a hole” differently.
Even if the surviving boy recovers, there will still be a before and after for the entire friend group.
Kids don’t always talk about fear the way adults do.
Sometimes it comes out as silence, anger, joking, or acting like nothing happened.
So having counselors there isn’t a luxury.
It’s a basic kind of support when young people are trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.
A Tragedy That Leaves A Lot Of Questions Behind
Evan Axelbank doesn’t frame this like a criminal story, and that feels right.
It sounds like nobody is accusing the kids of doing something malicious, and nobody is pretending the parents were neglectful.
This reads like a pure accident – one that still leaves a crater of grief.
But it also raises questions families everywhere ask after the fact. How close was that park to home? How often were the boys going there?
Did anyone else see them digging over those two weeks and think it was a problem, or did it look like harmless play?
There’s no blame in asking those questions.
It’s just what humans do when they’re desperate to find the moment where the ending could have changed. And the answer, most of the time, is brutal: sometimes there isn’t a clean moment.
Sometimes the “moment” is simply that sand collapses, and people don’t realize it until it’s too late.
The Small Comfort Of Community, And The Long Road Ahead
Evan Axelbank reports one boy is gone, and one boy is in critical condition.
Those two outcomes create two different kinds of suffering for the same community at the same time.
One family is planning a funeral.
Another family is waiting on doctors, monitors, updates, and the kind of hope that feels fragile and exhausting.
And then there are the friends, who are going to walk into school carrying a story they never asked for.
If there’s any thread of meaning in Evan Axelbank’s reporting, it’s that people are gathering around the families – neighbors, school staff, first responders, counselors.
That doesn’t undo anything.
But in the aftermath of a sudden, senseless accident, being surrounded is better than being alone.
And for anyone reading this with kids who love digging, building, tunneling, or “projects” outdoors, this story is a hard reminder that ground can be as dangerous as water.
Not because kids shouldn’t explore, but because some dangers don’t look like danger until they’re already falling on you.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
