CINCINNATI -- A Cincinnati-area family got a smelly surprise when they opened a punching bag they purchased earlier this year.

Joe Heckel said he and his son were moving a TKO brand heavy punching bag from their garage to the basement when they decided to see what was inside in case the bag later leaked. But Heckel said that instead of sand or plastic pellets, he found the bag full of men's and women's underwear, some of it used.

"(There were) bras, thongs and bathing suits. We could not believe there were clothes inside instead of sand," he said.

Heckel said the smell was "bad, real bad."

Heckel said that contacting the store where he'd bought the bag didn't go anywhere.

"I called to ask them if they could tell me if these were clean underwear, but I don't think that he believed me," Heckel said. "I said 'I'm a cop, I'm telling you that's what's in there!' He stated that he had never looked in a bag so he didn't know what was in them."

Heckel described the discovery as "gross but kind of funny in a way," and couldn't help but chuckle as he told his story. He and his son finished installing the punching bag after taking pictures, but he says they have yet to use it.

A spokeswoman for the store told partner Web site WLWT.com that they were unaware of what had happened, but asked for Heckel's phone number so they could contact him about the matter.

Attempts by WLWT.com to contact Technical Knockout Inc., the company that owns the TKO brand, have been unsuccessful. A number listed for the company was "unassigned."

But on Thursday, a company representative saw Heckel's story on a Houston Web site and called him.

Heckel said Thursday that the representative told him that the underwear in the bag was a "quality problem" that they were dealing with, and that the people who had made the decision to put underwear in the bags had been fired.

The representative said a new, non-underwear-filled bag would be shipped to Heckel shortly.