Graham Eaton of Ashington, England, said his wife, Lesley, reacted to the presence of three men in their remote home by faking a heart attack and collapsing to the floor, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Eaton said the unidentified invaders immediately fled the scene, but not before beating him with a baseball bat and smashing his wife's eye with a pistol.

"I can look after myself but I will never forgive them for what they did to my wife," said Eaton, who was tied up during last Friday's 30-minute robbery. "I just want to get revenge for that and want to meet them man to man and see what they are really made of."

Eaton credited his wife's impromptu heart attack with saving both their lives from the criminals, who fled with some cash and Christmas presents.

"Lesley started to make out that she wasn't breathing properly so I caught on and said she had a heart condition," he told the Telegraph.