Transmission Not Go Into Gear problems of the 2001 Jeep Laredo

I was backing my car out of my garage when I realized that I forgot something. I went to put the car in park and it was still moving forward. I tried to put it in reverse and it continued to move forward. After trying to put in different gears, I realized that it was not going to go into any gear. I was forced to turn off the engine and put the parking break on. Fortunately, I was not on a hill since the car would not go into park. Since it would not go into gear, the car's safety feature kicked in and would not allow me to re-start it. I had to have it towed to a garage and it was determined that the gear shift cable had broken. The charge was $200. 00, which included the towing. My car has 69,000 miles on it, but it is mostly highway miles. I am not hard on this car and no one else drives it. I have never heard of this happening to a car of this age. In fact, no one I know has ever heard of this happening to any car. I feel this part must have been defective. The mechanic said "it just broke". I asked if it looked like something could have happened, like a foreign object breaking it. He said "no". Had I been in a situation where I was on a steep hill I would have been very concerned about whether or not the parking break alone would have held since I could not get it to go into park or any other gear to move it. What would I have done? I believe this could be a dangerous situation if in the wrong place at the wrong time. The part was replaced and seems to be working fine. I do not have the old part.