Shad, it sounds exactly like what happened to mine. I took the whole sucker out. What I did was, invert a large plastic baggie over my hand/arm. Then grabbed the base of the leather with the hand enclosed in the baggie, which was obviously attached to the rock. Unfortunately I had to rip the whole leather off the rock. While doing this I also 'pinched off the base', figuring that was the most freshly exposed flesh, where the toxins would be released from. When I did this, I just took the plastic bag and 'swooped' it into the water, inverted the baggie and scooped up the whole leather in the bag.
Not sure if this was clear or not, but it worked for me. I also made sure the carbon was running fresh that day. I had zero losses using this procedure. I'm not sure there would have been any losses if I just ripped it out, but I took the extra precaution anyway.
HTH,
R