HOLIDAY, Fla. -- When Pasco County Sheriff's Deputy Taylor Grant arrived at the scene of a reported drowning on Green Key Road Thursday, he found a closed security fence in his path.

  • Deputy Taylor Grant responded Thursday to reported drowning
  • He scaled fence, sprinted 5 acres to help victim
  • Man was taken to hospital, is in critical condition

"Initially, it's something I can't say right now," Grant told reporters Friday about what went through his head when he first saw the closed fence. "I thought, 'OK, I've got to get a way through.'"

That way was up and over. Grant said he used a small electrical box on the fence to boost himself up, but once on the other side, he faced another obstacle: a property that was so big, he wasn’t sure if he was in the right spot.

"I thought I had the wrong location, and I thought I was going to have to run diagonal from the houses, but then I heard her yelling," Grant said.

Grant said what he heard was the victim's wife. Body camera video shows her struggling to hold her husband above water. The Sheriff's Office said he was stuck in the water between the sea wall and a floating walkway.

According to the Sheriff's Office, Grant had to sprint across five acres to get to them. He and the woman pulled him out of the water, and he said he tried to keep the man breathing until rescue crews arrived.

The man was taken to the hospital, where sheriff’s officials said he was in critical condition Friday afternoon.

Grant, 24, joined the Pasco Sheriff's Office a year and a half ago. He said he looks at the body cam video of the rescue as a useful tool, giving him ideas about how to improve.

"What I could've done better and what I should've done better, but I get to see that my job actually does make a difference to some people," Grant said.