I would be inclined to say he is dead, but I shot a buck a bunch of years ago whose beam came down around his jaw line. When I cut his skull I found that his skull had been broken, with a bigger piece that what is on the antler Magicman posted, then it twisted downward and healed that way. It looked like it had been healed for quite some time by the amount of bone growth and it was an older deer. He is the only true mature deer I've shot and we estimate him at 4.5 + years old.