not so sure that the clam would be the first to go. They can be surprisingly resilient...
WHen i moved from texas to oklahoma about 2 years ago, i moved all of my livestock and live rock into coolers and had them in the back seat of my car. In one cooler was a clam (attached firmly to a large piece of LR) and an anemone (also attached to a large piece of LR).
About an hour after i had packed up the car, i was saying my last goodbyes to a buddy when i noticed that the drain on the cooler had popped open - dumping about 15 gal of SW in the floor of my brand new bmw (but that's a whole different story...). I opened the cooler to find that the clam and anemone were "quite" dry and appeared they had been for some time. ****ed off and knowing they were both toast, i reached in and pulled the clam off the rock (tearing the foot). I tossed it in the grass... My buddy, who is a vet and not a SW guy picked it up and began prying the shell open. Just then, i noticed the clam try and retract a little. Surprised, i took it and tossed it into the cooler..."what the hay" right? I went by the LFS and bought some premade SW (of who knows what salinity, etc) and just dumped it in. ANyway, to make a very long story just a moderately long story.... that clam is still alive and well and has almost doubled in size. And i had always heard they were "fragile"
Sorry to hijack the thread...sorry for your loss.
