I have had two similar incidents. One on a heavy tri-jet while starting the first engine during pushback, with a ground engineer who spoke very poor English - it was the sight of the tug driving away that caused us concern, not the excited pleas from the ground, and the second in a B747-200 which suffered a tow-pin shear during pushback, again with the first engine winding up. In both cases gentle braking brought the aircraft to a stop without the nose-gear becoming airborne.
Some a/c use reverse thrust to power back - do the pilots use braking or forward thrust to come to a stop? The VC10 was able to power back, but banned because of the noise - ah the sound of 4 Conways!