Woah Warren, that's sad.

But I enjoyed seeing the pics of how an ep survives a mower - who gets that chance

Errr, sorry.
I've read plenty of times, that they make the better quality ep's quite tuff. I have a graze on my Vixen lvw and by the look of that graze it looked like it got a really good wollop - but the ep is so solid and heavy, you could see it would take a lot lot more, and it works beautifully despite this, hasn't affected optics at all.
Now if that happened to my Pentax XW, a funeral would be performed, people would be invited, and monetary gift giving would be encouraged.

Wouldn't surprise me if a choir was present either, all this whilst hubby yelling at me telling me to get over it, that I'm crazy.