diff --git a/tsdb/head_append.go b/tsdb/head_append.go
index 785e99db0..be53a4f3f 100644
--- a/tsdb/head_append.go
+++ b/tsdb/head_append.go
@@ -751,6 +751,12 @@ func (a *headAppender) Commit() (err error) {
 	// No errors logging to WAL, so pass the exemplars along to the in memory storage.
 	for _, e := range a.exemplars {
 		s := a.head.series.getByID(chunks.HeadSeriesRef(e.ref))
+		if s == nil {
+			// This is very unlikely to happen, but we have seen it in the wild.
+			// It means that the series was truncated between AppendExemplar and Commit.
+			// See TestHeadCompactionWhileAppendAndCommitExemplar.
+			continue
+		}
 		// We don't instrument exemplar appends here, all is instrumented by storage.
 		if err := a.head.exemplars.AddExemplar(s.lset, e.exemplar); err != nil {
 			if err == storage.ErrOutOfOrderExemplar {
diff --git a/tsdb/head_test.go b/tsdb/head_test.go
index 253f92d61..f2325039a 100644
--- a/tsdb/head_test.go
+++ b/tsdb/head_test.go
@@ -5514,3 +5514,31 @@ func TestWALSampleAndExemplarOrder(t *testing.T) {
 		})
 	}
 }
+
+// TestHeadCompactionWhileAppendAndCommitExemplar simulates a use case where
+// a series is removed from the head while an exemplar is being appended to it.
+// This can happen in theory by compacting the head at the right time due to
+// a series being idle.
+// The test cheats a little bit by not appending a sample with the exemplar.
+// If you also add a sample and run Truncate in a concurrent goroutine and run
+// the test around a million(!) times, you can get
+// `unknown HeadSeriesRef when trying to add exemplar: 1` error on push.
+// It is likely that running the test for much longer and with more time variations
+// would trigger the
+// `signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x20 pc=0xbb03d1`
+// panic, that we have seen in the wild once.
+func TestHeadCompactionWhileAppendAndCommitExemplar(t *testing.T) {
+	h, _ := newTestHead(t, DefaultBlockDuration, wlog.CompressionNone, false)
+	app := h.Appender(context.Background())
+	lbls := labels.FromStrings("foo", "bar")
+	ref, err := app.Append(0, lbls, 1, 1)
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	app.Commit()
+	// Not adding a sample here to trigger the fault.
+	app = h.Appender(context.Background())
+	_, err = app.AppendExemplar(ref, lbls, exemplar.Exemplar{Value: 1, Ts: 20})
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	h.Truncate(10)
+	app.Commit()
+	h.Close()
+}