Mega Hexagon Disaster

Hello all,
I recently entered panic mode when I came home to find a tennis-ball-sized wad of PLA around my hotend.
Evidently, a part peeled off the bed, stuck to the nozzle, and then wreaked havoc on every other part on the bed. The multiple hunks of plastic were dragged around while the extruder continued pushing out material. As the blob got larger, it pulled the thermistor out of the hole, causing the hotend to reach what I can only assume was max temperature.
Now, I'm wondering how to best clean up the mess. I tried using a blowtorch to soften the plastic enough that I could scrape it off layer by layer, but it made a strong odor and I figured that the collateral damage to other parts of the extruder unit wasn't worth it.
Has anybody else had this problem, or have any ideas how I should go about fixing it?
Thanks for any help you can give.

I tried to dremel off the wad of plastic but then realized that it was unlikely that i would be able to avoid damaging the hotend when i got closer to it. I just ordered another hexagon, since it wasn't worth the trouble.