Thermal Runaway and Smoke After I Snapped Wire  

Thermal Runaway and Smoke After I Snapped Wire

I was printing something fairly large (about 8 hours) when about 3 hours in my mom heard it making a strange noise and shut it off. It had created a huge mess of filament on the print bed and somehow encased the entire hot end and bottom of the extruder apparatus with PLA. I used a blow dryer and preheated the nozzle and was able to get most of it off, but as I was getting the last of it I accidentally snapped a small blue wire at the bottom. The LCD immediately said THERMAL RUNAWAY and the hot end shut off. Then smoke started coming out of the extruder for about 5 seconds then stopped.
Now I know the wire probably went to the thermistor and when the printer stopped receiving input it immediately shut off the extruder, but I don't know what the smoke is all about. I'm confident that I could replace the wire, but I'm afraid the smoke means something else broke as well. Does anyone know where the smoke could be coming from, or is it nothing and I just need to replace the wire?

Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about:

Any help is appreciated!