You're lucky you didn't burn your freezer motor out !
We defrost ours by putting everything in an old blanket in one of those pop-up gardening waste disposal bags, then put saucepans of nearly boiling water inside the freezer - after switching it off, of course. We replace the water in the saucepans as it cools, and generally get the whole thing defrosted in under an hour.
You probably will end up with a fairly large electric bill. I should start saving up now!