Freezer filler (pics) anatomy update page 3

[twitchstick]

[Mike Manassa]

Congratulations Joe..Thats the way to end the season..  

[JoeM]

I've been meaning to get on here and post this, it has me a little puzzled.  I knew when I shot this buck, my shot was a little back but nothing I was concerned with as the deer was slightly quartered. Concern came when the buck stood up an hour and a half later although very sick, he was still alive. I assumed I hit a little further back than I thought and took liver and one lung.
Butchering later I get a little confused.  My shot entered on the near side in front of the diaphragm by about 3 inches and exited on the far side dead center of the kill zone.  Height of the shot brought the arrow in about 3 inches below the spine inside the ribcage (not from the top of his back) and exited about two thirds down on the far side.
Now the diaphragm seperates the lungs and heart from the rest of the internals.  So why was this buck still alive? My BH's are always hair plowing sharp, I take pride in making sure of that. As best I can reconstruct he was double lunged. Maybe I only sliced the near side lung a little high, not enough to collapse it?  I'm not sure but nature continues to awe me, and sometimes make me scratch my head.
Some follow up picks of our freezer filler
Wrecking mommas kitchen
 
 

[recurve_shooter]

With the exit in the middle of the kill zone offside, it sounds like you probably did catch the back of the near lung, maybe centered the offside lung and were still a little too high for the heart.  It is amazing how tough they can be sometimes, yet the next one you hit like that might go down in 20 seconds!

Great idea with the blunt.  Your buddy ought to at least give you the backtraps off his deer...looks like you'll have plenty of help eating them!

[Big Ed]

[Skipmaster1]

Congrats on the deer and on having a family that is as happy as you are about getting it!

I had a similar thing happen  a couple of years ago. I made what looked like a perfect shot on a small buck. I saw where he ran into some thickets and thought he was down. I walked back to my house and waited for my buddy to come help me. It was pouring rain and by the time we got back a few hours had passed since the shot and we could still follow the blood trail! I was shocked when he jumped up in front of us. I hit him again as he bounded off and watched him bed 60yds away. We backed out and came back an hour later and he was down just a few yards from his last bed. I made sure to take pictures because I was amazed he lived that long looking at the location of the shot. Some deer are just plain tough!

[beendare]

Just speculation but.....if you look at the lung tissue of a healthy deer-say killed by spine shot- the tissue is like a sponge. It varies in thickness and density.

You could potentially catch the edge of a lung slicing an inch of lung tissue without causing the lung itself to fill with blood or collapse. I think there are a lot of unrecovered 'perfect shots' that- in reality- were a bit high and caught the top portion of this thick lung tissue.

[JoeM]

Originally posted by beendare:
Just speculation but.....if you look at the lung tissue of a healthy deer-say killed by spine shot- the tissue is like a sponge. It varies in thickness and density.

You could potentially catch the edge of a lung slicing an inch of lung tissue without causing the lung itself to fill with blood or collapse. I think there are a lot of unrecovered 'perfect shots' that- in reality- were a bit high and caught the top portion of this thick lung tissue.

You're spot on, most of the vessels are low in the lungs. I think what you described is exactly what happened, it just amazes me how they can take an arrow through the vitals and make it so long.  No doubt he would have died, when I saw him he was real sick. Just still amazes me the strength and will to live.  I also wanted to post this to pass along something that may be able to help others if they get in a similar pinch.  Joe

[Skipmaster1]

After talking with JoeM I decided to post these pictures as the situation was so similar. This is the deer i wrote about in the post above. It just shows that no matter how good a shot looks, sometimes strange things happen!

Entrance

 


Exit