HorseDoctor
PMA Member
It's a slow time of the year here, so why not discuss a controversial point? :thrwrck: Not really trying to start a fight, just do a little educating. (Can't help myself, it's what I do 
) I recently noticed on another thread a few comments about hitting deer with broadheads in the "space between" the lungs and the spine. Though technically there is a separation between the lungs and the spinal column, it is infinitesimally small (a minute fraction of an inch) and shaped such that this cannot happen. In the living animal the lungs actually extend up on either side of the spinal column such that it is virtually impossible to thread a broadhead through any such space without letting enough air in &/or blood out to kill them fairly quickly. Once the lungs have collapsed in death there may appear to be a gap, but in the living animal there is no discernible space between the two. I know that I have heard reference to this space on some TV shows also, but even celebrities saying it's there doesn't make it so. One of the things that may have helped perpetrate this myth is the spinal cord/vertebral bodies is much lower in the chest region than many people realize. I also suspect that during the split second that most archers are recovering from the recoil of the shot the deer frequently drops more than we think and what looks like a great hit is actually too high. I know it's happened to me.
Feel free to try to convince me with facts that threading this needle is an anatomical possibility. Saying "I know I hit it once" is not fact. That is anecdote and a far cry from fact.
) I recently noticed on another thread a few comments about hitting deer with broadheads in the "space between" the lungs and the spine. Though technically there is a separation between the lungs and the spinal column, it is infinitesimally small (a minute fraction of an inch) and shaped such that this cannot happen. In the living animal the lungs actually extend up on either side of the spinal column such that it is virtually impossible to thread a broadhead through any such space without letting enough air in &/or blood out to kill them fairly quickly. Once the lungs have collapsed in death there may appear to be a gap, but in the living animal there is no discernible space between the two. I know that I have heard reference to this space on some TV shows also, but even celebrities saying it's there doesn't make it so. One of the things that may have helped perpetrate this myth is the spinal cord/vertebral bodies is much lower in the chest region than many people realize. I also suspect that during the split second that most archers are recovering from the recoil of the shot the deer frequently drops more than we think and what looks like a great hit is actually too high. I know it's happened to me. Feel free to try to convince me with facts that threading this needle is an anatomical possibility. Saying "I know I hit it once" is not fact. That is anecdote and a far cry from fact.
