An employee at a Chinese bank put his own life on the line on Friday to help a customer who was taken hostage by a to-be robber.

A knife-wielding man held a female customer as a captive during his attempt to rob a branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in the city of Nanning, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. 

Surveillance footage shows the man calmly approaching his target and holding the sharp edge against her neck. Shortly after, an employee approaches the man and proposes a swap, offering to be taken instead of the woman. When the robber was least expecting, the employee lunged at him, and tried to seize the knife from him as one of the bank’s guard charged from the back, eventually bringing the man on the floor.