San Jose man, 82, tackles woman who allegedly attacked his wife

An 82-year-old man tackled and restrained a woman who had allegedly beat up his wife and tried to break into their San Jose home Sunday evening, pinning her down in the street until authorities arrived.

The next day, his wife said she was still shaking from the fear and stress.

“I’m not doing OK,” said Christine Youkhaneh, 76, speaking by phone from their home. “Too much stress. Too much worry. Somebody just came to kill me, I don’t know why.”

The attack occurred around 5:30 p.m., as Youkhaneh was heading into her backyard to do some tidying up. She stopped just outside the screen door and bent over to put on her shoes when she felt two hard cracks on her head, in quick succession. She looked up to see a woman hitting her with a large piece of wood.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff Dept. tweeted a photo of deputies posing with Yousef Youkhaneh. The Santa Clara County Sheriff Dept. tweeted a photo of deputies posing with Yousef Youkhaneh. Photo: Santa Clara County Sheriff‏ Dept. Photo: Santa Clara County Sheriff‏ Dept. Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close San Jose man, 82, tackles woman who allegedly attacked his wife 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

“I put my hand to my head, and she hit at my hand, very bad,” Youkhaneh said. “I tried to see who they are, and I see the lady just hitting me, like she’s going to kill me. No reason. I never saw her before. ”

Youkhaneh said she was able to run inside the house and call for her husband, Yousef Youkhaneh. With blood pouring down her face and staining her shirt, Christine ordered her husband to make sure the woman who had attacked her wasn’t able to get away. Yousef Youkhaneh did as he was told.

“I heard a scream from my wife,” Yousef Youkhaneh recalled. “I run to the scream and I see that my wife is bloody and the blood is coming out from her head, all over. Somebody hurt her.” Of course he gave chase, he said.

Yousef Youkhaneh pursued the intruder into the street in front of their home on McKee Road. While he was fighting her, his wife called 911. By the time deputies with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office arrived, Yousef Youkhaneh had a firm hold on the suspect, a woman more than 30 years younger than he is.

He stayed with authorities while his wife was taken to the hospital to explain what had happened. A few hours later, the Sheriff’s Office tweeted a photo of deputies posing with Yousef Youkhaneh.

Many times we meet citizens we see as heroes. Yousef, 82, defended his wife from an attacking burglar & held the suspect till we arrived! pic.twitter.com/Aj006pPrIN — SantaClaraCoSheriff (@SCCoSheriff) May 29, 2017

The tweet said, “Many times we meet citizens we see as heroes. Yousef, 82, defended his wife from an attacking burglar & held the suspect till we arrived!”

The suspect, Rehnu Singh, 50, of San Jose was booked into Santa Clara County Jail.

Christine Youkhaneh got eight or nine stitches in her head, and she said her hand is very bruised, but she’s otherwise uninjured. Still, she said she’s glad to be heading out of town to spend a week with her family in Orange County, though her husband will be staying home.

“I was just talking to my husband, and my whole body was shaking,” Christine Youkhaneh said, just before leaving for the airport. “Thirty-five, 36 years we live in the same house, we never had that kind of problem. I don’t know why this happened.”

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday