Starter drive went KABLOOIE!

In all my time with cars, I've never seen this happen.  Started my 71 Mach (351C) yesterday, and heard a funky clinking noise for a second as it fired.  Shut it down after warming it up for a bit, then tried to restart it.  Nothing.  Start just spun at full speed but didn't engage the flywheel.  

So, I pulled the starter off and imagine my surprise when I looked and saw all of the starter drive teeth totally stripped off.  I mean, they were ALL gone, and there were shards of teeth inside the bellhousing where the starter goes.   I wasn't able to examine the flywheel teeth themselves, but I did remove the inspection plate off the tranny and felt around the teeth, they didn't feel damaged.

So, I guess now I need to get the car hauled to a shop and  have the tranny pulled so the remaining shrapnel from the drive can be removed from the bellhousing (and there's a lot of it unaccounted for), and so the flywheel can be examined.  I can't believe it would be wise to leave that crap in the bellhousing.

So much for holiday cruising...

You could use a magnet to get most of it out.

I would try to turn the engine by hand and while you have the inspection plate off you could also examine the flexplate all the way around.

I would but have no way of getting it up into the air to do the examination. I don't know there's enough room to get a magnet past the fkywheel.