No bull: This was one interesting distress call to Hillsborough County deputies and rescue crews.
About 8:45 a.m. on Friday, deputies were contacted by a man mowing the grass along the county right-of-way about a cow he spotted struggling in a small retention pond.
Hillsborough County Deputy Christina Ammons was the first to find the 1,000-pound, 20-year-old bull weak and near drowning in a pond near 6031 Madison Ave. in Tampa.
Ammons stripped her gun belt and uniform shirt off and immediately got into the pond and waded out and lifted the bull’s head out of the water to prevent it from drowning about six feet from the shore.
Ammons held the bull’s head until Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crews arrived with a winch and pulled it to safety. Another deputy stood by with a rifle to safeguard Ammons from potential alligators that may have been in the water.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department documented the rescue through tweets, photos on Twitter, and on Facebook.
The rescue took about 30 minutes.
“UPDATE: The 20 yr old bull is beginning to moooove, the owner is on scene, looks like a great recovery in progress,” sheriff’s spokesman Larry McKinnon tweeted.
The bull is expected to make a full recovery, deputies say.
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McClatchy-Tribune News Service
