Ugh....dropped the stylus on the platter

They do tend to bounce when an accident happens. :(
It’s a horrible feeling and you have my sympathy.

Looking on the bright side, from what you describe, if you can still hear both channels as normal, then I doubt that any significant harm has been done.

This has happened to me on 2 occasions. Once by my own clumsiness when it bounced across a record during setup. The second was when a 4-year old (not even mine - the next door neighbours) ran headlong (with my daughter in pursuit) into the turntable knocking it backwards off the stand and causing the unsecured tonearm to fall and bounce. It was like a train crash in slow-motion. The cantilever ended up wedged in a small gap between the arm board and the top plate. “Ugh” is definitely the word.

The turntable was lifted back onto the table before I realised where the cantilever had parked itself.

All those years that my daughter respected the hi-if only to be undone by an outside force. :(

Just Twice? Shoot, I've been doing this since 1958 and I can't count how many times a tone arm has gotten away from me. Happened just the other day and with a Clearaudio Da Vinci no less. I've never had a cartridge damaged by this. It just looks a whole lot worse than it actually is. Keep on spinning:-)

Dropping the arm should not have damaged the cartridge.  The sideways swipe might be more of an issue, but, if it sounds okay, you are probably fine.  Under normal circumstances I don't see how this should ever happen.  My operation is simple, I always leave the arm cued up.  The only time I cue down is to play the record.  I never rely on the arm being on the rest.  

Thanks for the replies, I feel a bit better about it. And yes Larry, I usually do the same (leave tonearm lift up) but I must have forgotten this one time and of course that’s all it takes is that one time. And Moonglum, that is too bad! I got children as well but they respect my hifi and do not go near it, its me that I have to worry about🙄....lol. I will be replacing this blue point with the Hana El just ordered from music direct anyhow... but the blue point only has maybe 40 hours total on it...I will either sell it or just put it away for some other day. I own the pro-ject the classic sb superpack turntable with carbon fiber/aluminum tonearm and I’m hoping the low output Hana can improve things just a bit. I’ve read nothing but great things concerning the Hana el....I’ll be using a musical fidelity lx lps with loading plugs, possibly try the 500 ohm plug to start out as the hana requires 400 ohms or greater. The musical fidelity phono Preamp is pretty unique in that it came with 5 loading plugs. I only paid $250 (retail $299) for it. The lx2 lps, essentially the same preamp, got 5 stars in what hifi. I’m currently using a Graham slee amp2 se, but I find it lacking on some records.

I did that once.  Thankfully it was someone else's turntable.