Simulate stereo with mono - removing static?

[nhwinni]

I'm hoping someone can help please.

I recorded a concert last night on my Alesis disk recorder. Stereo channel. Small vocal choir with violin/viola/cello.

During a piece, one of the techs walked by the patch panel and brushed against a patch cable, sending it waving in the breeze. It was a bad patch cable and created static on my Right channel while recording. Left channel is fine.

I'm mastering in ProTools. I need to get rid of the 15-second static.
One thought I had was to take the Left channel (good) audio for those 15 seconds, and duplicate it on to the Right channel. I've done that. But I don't know how to blend the sound. During playback, you can clearly tell when you transition from true stereo, to 2-channel mono, back to stereo.

My question is how can I make this section "sound like" stereo, and ease the transition to & from the true stereo (before and after the static episode).

The good news is the mics were placed reasonably close together (5-6') so there isn't a lot of width in the stereo signal. It's more like a "depth" issue.

Can someone please offer a solution? I'm using LE for Windows, with the basic digi plugins / ignition pack.

Thank you
- Chris