Absolutely, you did the right thing!!!
Your wife’s response (no intent to bad-mouth her) is illustrative of two things…(1) the vast majority of people being turned into “herd animals” that sit passively waiting for big brother to take care of them and (2) the basic instinct of females to prevent harm to their male providers/counterparts.
We are losing our sense of community and individual involvement in that community in favor of the collective which, ironically, is run by power and control predators.
A couple of other points…she wouldn’t respect/like you much if you stopped behaving like a “man” and suppose that crunching metal was just the precursor to something worse that would endanger the entire household (fire, drunks, druggies, etc.) that your quick action could prevent.
Instead of berating you, maybe she should have gone out to the “front porch” (with a big gun?) to be your backup.