diff --git a/embedding.c b/embedding.c
index 743df7f..929a43f 100644
--- a/embedding.c
+++ b/embedding.c
@@ -295,6 +295,7 @@ hnsw_gettuple(IndexScanDesc scan, ScanDirection dir)
 		int         n_items;
 		size_t      n_results;
 		label_t*    results;
+		bool        search_succeeded;
 
 		/* Safety check */
 		if (scan->orderByData == NULL)
@@ -313,9 +314,12 @@ hnsw_gettuple(IndexScanDesc scan, ScanDirection dir)
 				 n_items, (int)so->hnsw->meta.dim);
 		}
 
-		if (!hnsw_search(&so->hnsw->meta, (coord_t*)ARR_DATA_PTR(array), &n_results, &results))
-			elog(ERROR, "HNSW index search failed");
+		search_succeeded = hnsw_search(&so->hnsw->meta, (coord_t*)ARR_DATA_PTR(array), &n_results, &results);
 		pfree(array);
+
+		if (!search_succeeded)
+			elog(ERROR, "HNSW index search failed");
+
 		so->results = (ItemPointer)palloc(n_results*sizeof(ItemPointerData));
 		so->n_results = n_results;
 		for (size_t i = 0; i < n_results; i++)
diff --git a/hnswalg.cpp b/hnswalg.cpp
index 500b542..0bb2f58 100644
--- a/hnswalg.cpp
+++ b/hnswalg.cpp
@@ -260,6 +260,8 @@ bool hnsw_search(HnswMetadata* meta, const coord_t *point, size_t* n_results, la
 		auto result = searchKnn(meta, point, meta->efSearch);
 		size_t nResults = result.size();
 		*results = (label_t*)malloc(nResults*sizeof(label_t));
+		if (*results == NULL)
+			return false;
 		for (size_t i = nResults; i-- != 0;)
 		{
 			(*results)[i] = result.top().second;