Northwave boa lever is stuck, and the release doesn't work

Yesterday a friend of mine went to my house to try my home trainer, because he was interested in buying a model similar to the one I own; since we have the same feet size, he tried my home trainer using my shoes, Northwave Origin Plus 2, but this is when things went down.

Despite my warnings, he putted on the right shoe by force, because he didn't know how to release the boa (Northwave boa lock is quite different compared to other models), and did the same when he finished to try my home trainer.

I saw him struggling a lot to free his right feet from the shoe, and in the back of my mind I knew that something was off, but I didn't check out immediately. Later on I discovered that the "release" boa was stuck, and you could only tighten the shoe endlessly.

After struggling a lot to find a suitable key, I finally opened the boa only to discover that the lever (yellow circle) was stuck, and it didn't move despite using the release of the shoe (red circle).

I searched on the internet but I've only found that you can replace the upper part of the buoy, but not the lower, like my case.

Let aside that my friend has been an a*****e, anyone who was in my situation have found a solution, other than buying a new pair of shoes?

Yesterday a friend of mine went to my house to try my home trainer, because he was interested in buying a model similar to the one I own; since we have the same feet size, he tried my home trainer using my shoes, Northwave Origin Plus 2, but this is when things went down.

Despite my warnings, he putted on the right shoe by force, because he didn't know how to release the boa (Northwave boa lock is quite different compared to other models), and did the same when he finished to try my home trainer.

I saw him struggling a lot to free his right feet from the shoe, and in the back of my mind I knew that something was off, but I didn't check out immediately. Later on I discovered that the "release" boa was stuck, and you could only tighten the shoe endlessly.

After struggling a lot to find a suitable key, I finally opened the boa only to discover that the lever (yellow circle) was stuck, and it didn't move despite using the release of the shoe (red circle).

I searched on the internet but I've only found that you can replace the upper part of the buoy, but not the lower, like my case.

Let aside that my friend has been an a*****e, anyone who was in my situation have found a solution, other than buying a new pair of shoes?