Bridge just wiped out scores of folders and hundreds of photo files

Question

Bridge CS3 (2.1.1.9) just did an absolutely terrible thing to me - so terrible that I fear ever to again use what I once thought was a great program.
I keep a blog (http://wasillaalaskaby300.squarespace.com/) and I was working on my latest entry. The blog is heavy on photos and so I had created an overall blog folder. Then, each day, I create a new folder with that day's date and put the photos that I plan to use into it.
In this case, I ran more photos, originally processed in Lightroom and then copied over as blog-sized jpgs, than I could use into today's folder, so I put in a subfolder for the ones that I would actually post.
Before posting the photos, I open them up directly out of Bridge into photoshop, from the daily folder, to put the final touches on them, then save them into the subfolder. I had processed seven photos and was about to begin on the eighth. I selected it in Bridge and then, because I also do so much work in lightroom, intead of clicking on the image icon to open it as I usually do, I inadvertently hit the "apple" "E" keys - just as I would in Lightroom.
The file did not open, but instead I got the spinning color wheel. I realized right away what I had done and so I paused to wait for the ball to quit spinning so that I could pick up where I left off.
But... when the ball quit spinning, all the photos in the folder disappeared. Bridge moved to another folder, one that showed all my hard drives. I then clicked the back arrow, and got a message that the folder that I had been working in could not be found.
In fact, the folder was GONE - along with all the files in it, and the subfolder. Worse yet, the main blog folder was also gone, along with every single daily folder and all the pictures that I had put into them.
None of this was in the trash. I had received no warning of any kind. I did separate searches for the folder and various items in it. It was all gone.
I do not know what happened. I do not know why the command to open a file out of Lightroom when inadvertantly used in Bridge would not only remove that file from the computer, but also the folder that it was in and every folder back to and including the root folder of the chain.
But however it happened, it is an outrageous feature.
And if by chance I inadvertantly hit "apple" "d" instead of "apple" "e", it should have deleted that file only, and even then I should have received a warning. I should have been able to find the deleted folder in the trash.
Worse yet, I do not really know if the deletions went beyond the blog folder and its contents.
This is terrible.
Bridge did this.

Answer 1

Glad your problem is solved but I still would like to respond.
Hitting the cmd+E key in Bridge is the command for eject and that is exactly what happened, Bridge (that is more like a browser for your files) ejected (or better, unmounted) the hard drive from your system and so you were not able to see it any more.
But you are also right that shortcuts can be tricky when they use different functions in different apps that are made by the same vendor. You could also send a Feature Request for this, you are not the first but the more that are asking for this the better it will be :-)
Further on I get the impression that you don't have a back up of your files? This is really necessary because there are a lot things that can happen using accidently keys or failing hard drives or you name it.