That exact same thing happened to me many years ago with our Dutchmen Sport. Except, when I lifted the handle, the the awning came crashing down, I had the handle in my hand, and the rest of that arm was down! Yea, broke it right off in my hand. (how embarrassing.) It didn't bend the arm, and I was able to get a replacement just fine. BUT the fabric on the awning was stretched slightly, in the middle and always had a dip in it, even when the awning was pulled tight as I could get it (extended). After that incident, we learned to put the awning up at night. Sure that was a pain in the neck with a manual awning, but at least, we never had that problem again!
