Deer anatomy.....no void ???

[kentrek]

Seems every year I hear more and more stories of people hitting "the void" on a deer/elk and them living happily ever after...I've even heard of other voids in the chest now starting to show up....losing an animal sucks and the first thing to do is to try and reassure yourself there's a chance it will not be a fatal hit....but the woods are no fairy tail....

Food for thought next time you release that arrow or pull the trigger....odds are it's going to die...how it dies is up to you.


Enjoy

[BULLBLASTER]

Say it isn't so!!! What about all the deer shotnin the void?

I've cleaned and taken apart lots of animals and never once did I find anything that even close to resembles a void of any kind in the body cavity. Glad there are other people out there who have a basic understanding of anatomy.

[grundy53]

Those lungs are huge...

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[92xj]

Every hunter should have to watch this video from beginning to end.  This is by far the best on I have found to explain everything you need to know about shot placement facts and myths.

[Jonathan_S]

On mature bucks, you can hit above the spine and the thick hide and tallow makes you think "void". Especially during the rut when they are puffed up. The "whump" sound makes it seem like a solid hit but there is zero blood on arrow or ground

[ctwiggs1]

this video just changed my life LOL

[Matth]

Agreed!!!! I think the lungs are to big but all in all very well put together. i never agreed with the void theory only good shots, and bad shots.

[Jonathan_S]

Agreed!!!! I think the lungs are to big but all in all very well put together. i never agreed with the void theory only good shots, and bad shots.

Plenty of "bad" shots result in a deer dead 100 yards away. Part of the "good" shot is the follow up and appropriate response time.

[Okanagan]

Excellent video!

But I'm gonna demure slightly.  I don't think that there is a void but I am convinced that it is possible to slip an arrow or a minimally expanded bullet through the top edge of the lung and do little enough damage that the animal can evade recovery and in some cases, even survive.  That is based on 60 years of observation along with dissecting a lot of critters.  That is an unlikely and quite rare event however, and it is an extremely small spot to hit.

Something that may or may not help explain how this anomaly could occur is that all anatomy dissections are done on dead animals rather than living, moving tissue.  Most are done with the animal body in one position and none are done on living, moving tissue of a walking or running animal going uphill, downhill etc.  Though there is no void at any time, with the top lobes of lungs extending above the lower spinal bones on both sides, on an animal jumping down and hit at the moment gravity bottoms out the "sag" of soft tissue inside the body cavity, I suspect that a clean penetration at the bottom edge of spinal bones is survivable.  I could cheerfully be wrong. 

Anecdotal:  With a .30-06 and 180 Swift A-frame I shot a bull elk broadside at 50 yards as he walked steeply downhill with kind of a jolting gait as he braked himself a bit with each step.  He dropped at the shot, which surprised me and should have alerted me that I had hit him higher than the upper-mid lungs expected.  I lost sight of him as I approached and he got up and ran off.   We tracked him for 8 hours and well over a mile in which he bled less than a cup of blood and never laid down.  We saw him long after the season seemingly very healthy with a mussed up scar spot on his side behind his shoulder below his spine.  (And yes, the spine is WAY down lower than most people realize.)  I think that I ticked the under side of the spine which knocked him out for a moment, and that the bullet didn't do enough damage to the lungs to kill.  The bull was above me a little and the bullet was climbing higher and maybe even passed above the offside lung as it expanded.   That bullet has proven excellent on a number of elk, moose, deer and bears with deep penetration and good expansion, but it does not expand explosively on contact.  On a similar broadside shot at a large bull elk hit through the middle of both lungs, the bullet made a gradually widening channel the size of a nickel an inch into the near lung which expanded to grapefruit size by its exit from the off side lung.  That bull was also walking and he dropped after walking another 40 feet, such a tidy kill that I held on the same spot on the bull above.   

[BULLBLASTER]

I Am thinking that most "void" shots actually go over the spine and into the backstrap area. The spinal column does drop down a good bit at the shoulders.
A shot to the spinal column or just below will certainly equate to a dead critter in short order. It would either be a central nervous hit, or the main arterys and veins run directly under the spine to the rear end. Immediately below that is the lungs. Above the spinal column is lots of tissue and minor bone parts (the part of the vertabrea that goes up to the top of the strap).

[Okanagan]

Agree with all that has been said about anatomy and especially that most so-called "void" shots go above the spine and do little lasting damage.  I dropped a bull moose at 8-10 foot range and hit him above his spine broadside with the bullet missing all bone as it went between the vertical bones that extend up into the withers.   He was too close for the scope to focus on at 2 power and all I could see was black hair of unknown location.  I raised the scope up and up till I found the top edge of his fuzzy hair (with hackles up it added probably 8 inches more hair above his spine) and then went down down down till I was pretty sure I was down to his spine or lower, and fired.  He dropped with kind of a slump rather than a thud.  Hmmm... I could not see a mark on him so put an insurance between his eyes.   The first bullet had done almost zero damage other than poking a clean hole through non-vital hump muscle but it did knock him unconscious probably due to shock wave on his spinal cord.   He would soon have awakened and walked away with no more than a sore spot on his withers.

A better title than "void" for my angle of this topic would be whether it is possible for a bullet or arrow to pass between spine and lung and leave the animal in escapable/maybe even survivable condition.   My position remains that it is unlikely but possible.  I'm open but at this stage I don't think any anatomy sessions will show me anything new enough to change my mind.  And again, we are talking about an extremely small percentage of animals hit that could have survivable factors align. 

Re blood vessels that run along under the spine, I killed a large black bear with a recurve and old Bear Razorhead with a hit under his spine just ahead of his pelvis, broadside.  The broadhead cut the large blood vessel that was tight under his spine and he died in mid stride after a run of 75 yards, leaving massive blood trail.  I don't recommend aiming for that spot but it is deadly when hit. 

After further thought -- I'd guess that if such a pass through does occur, a deer is less likely to survive it than larger animals with larger organs more able to survive small diameter wounds.  This topic started with deer and my examples of larger critters are not directly equivalent.

Carry on.    

[Skyvalhunter]

Well

[fishnfur]

I can't figure out why this guy is standing out in the snow to explain all this anatomy.   

[JDHasty]

I Am thinking that most "void" shots actually go over the spine and into the backstrap area. The spinal column does drop down a good bit at the shoulders.
A shot to the spinal column or just below will certainly equate to a dead critter in short order. It would either be a central nervous hit, or the main arterys and veins run directly under the spine to the rear end. Immediately below that is the lungs. Above the spinal column is lots of tissue and minor bone parts (the part of the vertabrea that goes up to the top of the strap).

I've done just that on a decent 4 point BT buck.  Arrow went through right above the spine.  I blood trailed the deer 325 yards and the blood trail stopped.  I looked and looked for another drop and never found any.  Arrow went through right above the spine, had blood all the way to the nock and was stuck in the ground ten yards past the deer.  I saw him in October of this year and you cannot tell he had ever been cut by a broadhead. 

[DOUBLELUNG]

There is no air in the thorax outside of the lungs, unless there is a pneumothorax - a hole that allows air into the thorax.  This is what causes a collapsed lung - air enters the thorax through the hole on the inhale, preventing the lung from inflating and thus preventing oxygenation of the blood.  Thus, if you shoot an animal in the chest, you create the air space - but only after the shot, and as a result of lung(s) collapsing.  Any shot that damages tissues within the chest cavity causes a hemothorax - blood in the chest cavity.  Most shots to the chest cause both air and blood in the chest cavity, a hemopneumothorax.  There is no void until the lung(s) collapse. 

A pneumothorax that doesn't damage the heart or lungs appreciably is a distressing but effective kill shot if both lungs collapse - I've seen it with a shot that breaks the sternum but doesn't hit heart or lung - either behind or through the front legs, or through the front of the chest below the thoracic inlet.  The animal will go down very quickly as both lungs collapse, but will gasp horribly for an extended period as there is very little bleeding and the heart continues to pump with no appreciable hypovolemic shock - the classic sucking chest wound.  Most people will "put it out of its misery" long before the heart stops beating due to lack of oxygen - cause of death is cardiomyopathy as the heart muscle dies. 

A glancing wound to the ribs may cause a lateral pneumothorax in which only one lung collapses.  This is a high probability of a lost animal in a hunting situation.  Some may clot over, allowing the lung to reinflate, and actually allowing the animal to recover.  I suspect this is also why an animal with a collapsed lung will often go to water, as mud may plug the pneumothorax. 

It is possible, especially with lower velocity small calibers, to cause a hemothorax with no external pneumothorax - the entrance wound seals, the lung doesn't collapse, and the animal eventually dies as it bleeds out internally.  This is quite often the explanation for the "perfectly healthy-looking" dead animal.  (Others are acute disease and blunt force trauma, usually from a motor vehicle collision, which causes organs to rupture but with little to no external sign).  I've had it happen once on a bull elk with an arrow - the hit looked great but penetration was only 1/2 the length of the shaft.  The shaft nearly sealed the hole, although there was some bright red mist expelled when he was on a run.  The pneumothorax sealed as soon as he slowed to a walk, no more blood except the occasional drip down his side from the entrance wound.  I lost the sign at just over 400 yards.  When I found him three days later, thanks to the birds, he had traveled nearly 1200 yards.  Classic single lung hit without a persistent pneumothorax. 

I agree with those who suspect that a pass-through shot that appeared to go "just under the spine" is actually above the spine.