The easiest way I found to take the mirrors off my 06 gixxer was to disconnect the wires from behind the gauge cluster. You can reach back there if your (or you girlfriend's in my case) hands are small enough and just disconnect the wiring.

By the way, if you didn't hit the woman by laying the bike down you would not have hit her by braking properly. You will never stop faster by laying down a bike than by braking hard because the tires can grip the street a lot better than the side of the bike, your skin, etc. Back brake is only 30% overall, so next time you should try the front brake along with the back brake (even just the front is a hell of a lot better than just the back).

The MSF course may be a good idea if you haven't taken it yet as they explain how to avoid these types of drops. On the other hand, this kind of thing can happen to anyone, so at least it wasn't worse.