It can happen and even be the worst experience than this, if you make use of an exchange and the centralized exchange got hacked or went bankrupt, the bitcoin is gone, because you have no private keys to unlock your access to them on the blockchain, not your keys not your coins, except if we are using a non custodial means to hold our asset, it's sucks when you see that some bitcoiners are not well informed on how to make use of a non-custodial wallet from a custodial type and yet they will have their bitcoin on CEX not minding on the possible consequences.
You are right and that is why storing bitcoins is better not done on an exchange because if something like what we are talking about will cause the bitcoins we have to be lost and even contacting the exchange service for any reason will not help much. If someone cares about the level of asset security then of course people will look for a safe place to store the bitcoins they have because after all, protecting valuable assets like bitcoins must really be a priority so that the investment steps we take are much safer and do not harm ourselves if something unexpected happens.