Dover said :
"This raises the question of whether both the stylus and your records have been damaged - not good. For example - if a cartridge miss-tracks once, the record is permanently damaged."
Reply :
You're probably right about minor damage occurring but once the arm & cart are properly set up or e.g. the cleanliness issue is removed by deep cleaning, it's unlikely you'll ever be able to hear any signs of damage. (As long as it's a one-off playback and not persistently exposed to the same mistake.)
I could be wrong of course but I've had situations like this and the LP has come up smelling of roses afterwards - as if the mistracking never happened. It's always easy to pick out those moments for "analysis" during replay because it invariably happens on peaks.