He could have lived. I know a guy who shot a buck one time that had a completely busted skull plate (the two horns could both move if you grabbed them. He saw the deer like this and shot it found out the skull plate was split from a fight of hit by a car of something. Another buck I saw one time a guy shot had one of the horns almost busted off and the skull plate was busted like the one you found only there was even more skull on it. Don't know how either of those two bucks were still alive but they were like that when they shot em so who knows. WCL