Plumber plays electrician!

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While working at a client's house recently, the fellow's plumber stoppped by to apologize for burning a coaxial cable while sweating a joint. The unexpected visit reminded the client of "little" problem that he had with his 220V well pump. Apparently there was a short to "ground" on one of the hot conductors. I put ground in parentheses because if there were a ground present I would assume that the breaker would have tripped. It did not, and the plumber found out the hard way on a previous service call. His ingenious fix was naturally to cut the grounding conductor at both ends so short as to render it useless.
Now a few questions;
I don't feel I was very clear to this person on the seriousness of the problem, as I was not in the mood to go toe-to-toe with the plumber. Is there any specific scenario I could give to emphasize the danger(s) of an ungrounded well pump?
Is there any safe way of temporarily resolving the grounding issue while excavation arrangements are being made?

Thanks
 
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