My husband helped me get it out. He yanked it very hard, and when it came out, it was all black and gunky where it met the nozzle and smelled burnt. I do believe we had it at 200 degrees, because I then fed some raw filament down through the hot end (with the nozzle off) and you wouldn't believe the gooey gunk that came out (wouldn't have been gooey if it weren't heated). It just kept coming and coming. I believe the entire hotend had backed up filament in it.
Well and good .... however, I couldn't get my nozzle to "bite" when I tried to put it back in. I thought maybe there was some goo in the female threads, my husband thought we'd maybe stripped the threads. Whichever ... I still can't get the nozzle back on, so I've ordered a new hotend. 2 of them, as a matter of fact. Now I'm watching videos on how to swap that out. <sigh> One thing leads to another, and one fix broke something else. I might get me a working printer by the end of the month. <thud>
Thank you for answering. I haven't had much luck getting answers here on this forum. I sure do appreciate it.