A family was just rescued back in June thanks to a SOS note that was literally launched as a message in a bottle.

Three months ago, Curtis Whitson embarked on a 4-day camping voyage on the Arroyo Seco River in central California with his girlfriend and his 14 year-old son. All was going well until the third day, which is when disaster struck the trio.

While hiking, the group had just made their way down a narrow gorge when they found themselves on top of a 40-foot waterfall. When Curtis had hiked down the river years ago, there had been a rope secured to the cliff face so that travelers could safely rappel down from the top of the waterfall in minutes. Sadly, however, that rope was no longer there, and Curtis guessed that it had been washed away by floodwaters.

Since there was no rope, Curtis and his family were left unable to climb down the cliff. The gorge walls were also so steep that they were left trapped in the semi-isolated area with no cell service.

“It was a sad realization, to know that our trip was over and we needed help. Every inch down that river had committed us to a spot where we couldn’t get out,” Curtis said. “It was a little scary. We hadn’t seen a single soul the entire trip.”

Curtis first tried carving an SOS message onto a stick to send floating downstream, but it was too light to stay afloat amidst the river’s current. Improvising, he decided to use a much more unlikely tool: a green plastic water bottle.

Luckily for them, Curtis’ girlfriend Krystal Ramirez is an incredibly competitive card player, and she brought along a pen and receipt pad so she could keep score of their games. After scratching “HELP” onto both sides of his bottle, Curtis wrote a message that included their location and put it in the bottle before throwing it downstream. He then told his girlfriend and son that all they could do was wait, so they set up camp and went to sleep.

Hours later, they were stunned when they were woken up by a search-and-rescue helicopter hovering over their heads! Their rescuers came over a loudspeaker to tell the family that they had received their message and that they should sit tight until they could come back and rescue them the next morning.

They later learned that two hikers had found the bottle about a quarter of a mile downstream from where Curtis had sent it out. The hikers then brought the bottle to staffers at the Arroyo Seco Campground so they could alert a search-and-rescue crew.

The next morning, rescuers with the California Highway Patrol flew in to airlift the family to safety. Helicopter pilot Joe Kingman said that before this incident, he had never heard of a message in a bottle prompting a successful rescue. Even Curtis was shocked it worked out.

“It blows me away how it all came perfectly together,” Curtis said. “What are the odds?”

Find out more in the video below.