Converting a refrigerator for a different purpose, Freon leaked!

I screwed up big time! I bought a used fridge today. I am converting this fridge into an incubator, so even though it was in working order, I didn't need it to work.

So to make it lighter and take up less room, I went about removing everything from the back of it. This included the big coil like thing as well as the compressor under the back of it. Everything was free except for one last connection. This was the tube that went into the rear of the freezer compartment.

Before tonight, I knew NOTHING about refrigerators and how they worked. I also know NOTHING about Freon! So if you haven't guessed it already, I'll tell you what I did. I started to cut the tube right where it came out of the back of the freezer. Well it started making a hissing sound. I tried to tape it up until I could figure out what it was and what to do about it, but the tape would not hold.

I was doing this in my second floor apartment. I started getting nervous about what might happen (didn't know whether Freon might be dangerous to us) so I dragged it out onto my balcony and let it leak out. I didn't know what else to do, and I didn't know the consequences until I searched the web for info.

I'm very sorry to say that I've now broken the law and also harmed the ozone. I simply had NO idea! I'm embarrassed and ashamed for being so stupid. I should have waited to do this until I could have talked to someone that knew what they were doing.

Unfortunately, it was about 10pm when I did this. So I had no where to turn. With that said, I never actually finished cutting the tube. What should I do now?

Should I just go ahead and finishing cutting the tube? Is there anything else I would need to do to make this safe to bring back into my house?

Thanks so much for your time, I hope you'll be able to answer my questions soon as I'm really worried about what I've done! Just how bad is what I've done??