{"id":4128,"date":"2025-10-15T05:52:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/4128\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:52:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:52:26","slug":"heres-the-deadly-secret-behind-central-floridas-deepest-sinkhole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/4128\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the deadly secret behind Central Florida\u2019s deepest sinkhole"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 At the north end of Orange County, a water-filled sinkhole<\/a> dubbed the \u201cMystery Sink\u201d sits as the deepest point in the entire state.<\/p>\n

And being so close to Interstate 4, most drivers have likely passed by it without even noticing.<\/p>\n

According to the Orange County Regional History Center<\/a>, the hourglass-shaped hole is roughly 150 feet around and is estimated to be 500 feet deep \u2014 perhaps even more.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s far deeper than other notorious sinkholes like Deep Lake<\/a> or the 1981 Winter Park sinkhole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re not likely to hear about it.<\/p>\n

The “Mystery Sink” stretches an estimated 500 feet down \u2014 perhaps even more. (Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Old newspaper clippings<\/a> show that in 1970, a 16-year-old boy went scuba diving in the lake with a local diving instructor \u2014 Hal Watts \u2014 who had leased the right to use the hole to teach about deep-water diving.<\/p>\n

The pair were searching the lake for a lost safety vest, but Watts eventually realized that the teen was no longer with him. Watts reportedly spotted the teen\u2019s light below him, but it disappeared before he could find the teen.<\/p>\n

Watts blacked out, and by the time he came to, he was unable to find the boy, and the teen was presumed drowned.<\/p>\n

This kicked off a massive search to recover the 16-year-old\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Three days later, another diver \u2014 Bud Sims \u2014 was helping with the search, but he became tangled in the lines that were being used to find the boy\u2019s body, according to the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

As a result, he panicked, losing his mouthpiece and swimming quickly toward the surface, deputies said.<\/p>\n

In a TV boat floating above the dive team, the crew \u201cheard and felt a thud\u201d before spotting a light that drifted down deeper into the lake. Investigators said that Sims had died before he even struck the boat.<\/p>\n

At the time, Watts \u2014 who had joined the dive team in the search \u2014 raced after Sims, though he suffered from the bends and was forced to stay below the water until first responders could get him to a recompression chamber.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, neither the teen nor Sims\u2019 bodies were ever recovered, and with two lives being claimed by the sinkhole, it was closed to the public for good, with a large, barbed fence being constructed around the area.<\/p>\n

A tall fence and trees surround the hole, intended to keep intruders out. (Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Nowadays, the sinkhole still sits on private land, meaning that no one is allowed to go out there without permission.<\/p>\n

The owner declined to speak with News 6 about the sinkhole, and out of respect for the owner\u2019s privacy, News 6 has chosen to withhold the exact address for this site.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in exploring some of the stranger parts of Central Florida\u2019s history, you can instead visit ClickOrlando\u2019s Florida Fables page by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 At the north end of Orange County, a water-filled sinkhole dubbed the \u201cMystery Sink\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,4566,2457,4569,4568,1335,139,141,140,2546,4567],"class_list":["post-4128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-florida-fables","tag-history","tag-i-4","tag-interstate-4","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-strange-florida","tag-winter-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}