The two young boys were playing in a park in Florida.

17:04, Wed, Jan 14, 2026 Updated: 17:06, Wed, Jan 14, 2026

George Watts and Derrick Hubbard

George Watts and Derrick Hubbard died after a horror incident in a park (Image: Facebook)

Best friends George Watts and Derrick Hubbard, both 14, sadly passed away after being trapped underground following a freak accident in a Florida park on January 11. The pals built a tunnel out of sugar san, which is incredibly fine and powdery. They had been digging for two weeks, as reported by the Fox affiliate WTVT-TV. Their parents became concerned when their kids failed to return home from the park and were not answering their mobile phones. The two were reported missing but were not seen playing in the park. 

One of the parents then rushed to Sportsman Park in Inverness, located around 70 miles from Orlando, having reportedly received an alert from their son's cell phone an hour earlier. The alert showed that he had been in the park area. The boys' shoes and bikes were near the sand.

It took paramedics 30 minutes to pull the boys out of the hole. According to Citrus County sheriffs they were around four to five feet underground. Hubbard was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Watts was on life support before his death at 4.25am on Tuesday. When he arrived at the hospital, he was unconscious and not breathing on his own, The Sun reported. Watt's mum Jasmine said they were incredeibly close friends and shared a bond that went beyond friendship, claiming the two "were inseparable, full of life, curiosity, and dreams for the future".

She wrote in a GoFundMe post: "What should have been another day of childhood adventure turned into a heartbreaking loss that no parent should ever have to endure. Our precious boys were taken from us far too soon."

The two boys

The two boys were described as "old school" by their coach (Image: Gofundme)

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In a throwback post on Facebook, the mother added: "I feel so lost without you, how do I move on?"

Corey Edwards, the boys' coach, told WTVT: "They were what we were like when we were kids when we didn't have all this technology. These kids were outside every day, and a tragic accident that, honestly, no one could have predicted."