This is the moment a bakery employee sneaks up on a robber threatening his wife and batters him over the back of the head with a wooden chair, preventing him from making off with the money from the till.

Uerlisson Lessa was recognised as employee of the month following his heroics at the bakery and burger joint ‘Coxinha’s’ in the Brazilian city of Porto Velho on Thursday, 23rd September.

Security-camera footage of the robbery and Uerlisson’s subsequent thwarting of it went viral on Brazilian social media, racking up tens of thousands of views.

Netizens called for the chair-wielding hero to be honoured in some way by the bakery, leading to it announcing that Uerlisson had been named employee of the month.

Not only was Uerlisson hailed as a model employee, but he was also praised as a good husband, as one of the two cashiers being held up at the time was his wife.

The other cashier told the police that the man who entered had posed as a customer and had taken bread to the till before brandishing a weapon and announcing the holdup.

After Uerlisson whacked him over the head with the chair, the staff members present were able to subdue him and prevent him from making off with the money.

Henderson Cahu, who owns the bakery, said: “We don’t do ’employee of the month’ here, but after what happened, we saw lots of people commenting on social media that he should be employee of the month, so we decided to do it.”

“We got in on the joke after lots of memes on social media. We took a photo of him with the chair and we put it on Facebook recognising him as employee of the month.”

The police have since recommended not to follow Uerlisson’s example and to call the cops instead in such situations.

The fate of the robber is unclear.