Ray,
Gotta say - those pics are WILD to look at - albeit - TRULY SAD Indeed!!!
So, this brings up something. That is - the inner windings of a spool - it can be tough to use the spool all the way to the end - especially with PLA. The closer you are to the center - the SMALLER is the Diameter of the Windings. That has a very Adverse affect on the filament! Now - there you go- respooling (and I enjoyed your mention of my funny co-worker doing a crazy respooling) - and, problem is - Naturally - the Inner windings of the old spool - become that Outer windings of the Respool. And, as you will see in your pics - it's like the Outer 1/4 is FUBAR - as that was previously the Inner 1/4 of the original spool.
Yeah - I have OLD PLA spools - that I can print with them - but, when I get to the very inner windings - it starts breaking a lot - and ruins print jobs. Will literally have MULTIPLE Breaks within the feeding tube - between initial feeding in and the print head. It all makes sense - since as print head is moving around - the feeding tube is Constantly Flexing in different ways.
So - there you have it...
Still - you probably CAN have a Miner Victory - if you carefully open the bag - find the true End of the filament - which it last broke - and hopefully you CAN Indeed use the rest of the Spool dude!
Keep us posted - as to whether you were able to use that spool - at least 50% of it - as this makes for an interesting story. And - for future newbie hobby 3DP folks who join the forum - being able to go back to this old posting thread - will make for some great Anecdotal stories...
-K