A masked man burst into a 7-Eleven near Seattle early Sunday morning, swinging a hatchet and slicing the store clerk.

Before the masked man could seriously hurt anyone, however, a customer who had been drinking his morning coffee pulled out a concealed weapon and fatally shot the attacker.

Authorities did not name the attacker or the customer, but they did hail the concealed weapon owner as a hero.

“This could have been disastrous,” King County Sheriff Sgt. Cindi West told KIRO 7. “Had this guy not shot, who knows what would have happened. We might have a dead clerk right now, and instead we have a dead bad guy.”