Deputy and her partners rescue drowning bull

On Friday morning, Deputy Christina Ammons responded to a call about an exhausted elderly bull on the verge of drowning in a large retention pond in Palm River, Florida.

She found the bull stuck in his mud, its head dipping below the water.

Without hesitating, Ammons jumped in the water and held the animal's head up.

"I saw big nostrils going underwater and staying underwater with water blowing out," Ammons told ABC Action News. "I stripped everything off that the sheriff's office really cares about," she joked. "And then I got in."

Ammons and her partners held the bull's head above the water's surface for the next three hours. Eventually the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue was able to tug the bull to safety with a winch and several straps.

"I'm amazed that the deputy was able to hold his head up out of that water," said Charles Cochran, the bull's owner. "You're looking at several hundred pounds."

The nearly 20-year-old bull appears to be recovering well.

Cochran told ABC Action News that he finally gave his bull a name:

"Lucky," he said. "For sure."