This must have been a very unusual sight for anyone. I would have looked around for the hidden cameras expecting to wind up on some prank video but what happened at a Bank of America in Corpus Christi, Texas was the real deal.

After all, what would you do if a handwritten note emerged from your ATM’s receipt slot asking for help and indicating that a person is stuck inside?

It seems a number of ATM users passed off the notes as some kind of joke and did nothing, but then one finally thought it might be wise to at least contact police, KZTV-TV reported.

And it turned out to be no joke.

Police told the station that a contractor was changing a lock to a room connected to the ATM and got locked inside. His phone was in his truck, so his only option was to slide “please help” notes through the receipt slot when customers approached, KZTV reported.

One read, “Please help. I’m stuck in here and I don’t have my phone. Please call my boss …” The phone number was redacted for TV cameras.

“We come out here, and sure enough we can hear a little voice coming from the machine,” Corpus Christi Police Senior Officer Richard Olden told KZTV. “So we are thinking this is a joke. It’s got to be a joke.”

The station said police called the contractor’s boss and he was soon set free — after being trapped in the room for about two hours.

“Everyone is OK,” Olden said to KZTV, “but you will never see this in your life, that somebody was stuck in the ATM, it was just crazy.”