You may also be able to recover your section from objects in session which will usually keep SEC000##.sec files from the section you had been working on. Even though the feature was deleted the last section you sketched can be improted into the replacement sketch you are creating.
This will help out if you didn't or don't save while in sketch.
I almost always start out with a sketch feature because they can always be turned into internal sketches thus avoiding the problem you ran into.
