Put any label you want on it, strange things can and do happen.

I have watched more than one deer with an arrow sticking out both sides of the chest cavity area. I would say at least one of them for sure was below the spine, simply because I watched this particular buck with a doe for about 45 minutes from about 70 or 80 yards with binos out in a crp field (yes, unfortunately I am the one that put the arrow there).

Look, if a man can survive being stabbed in the top of his head, and carrying around a butcher knife in his brain for part of the day, what can a deer do? I saw a woman last night on TV that had a 2x4 (or something of that nature), that a tornado jammed through her right ear, through her jaw, and finally passed completely through her neck. It was sticking out both sides of her. She survived.

It was recently posted on here again, a picture of a broadhead and broken arrow that had fused itself to the inside of the ribcage of a deer. I wouldn't necessarily consider that "no mans land" but it does show what can happen on occasion.

So many times people form opinions of the impossibility of "no mans land" because in the 25 or so deer they have killed with a bow, even with a few high hits, nothing unexpected has ever happened. Therefore, the picture to the link posted above is positively above reproach. Certainly taking 25 or so deer with a bow is a respectable number but in the scheme of things, a harvest number of 25 is hardly a blip on the the screen.

It is true that many times the "hit" is not in the spot we thought it was. However, it is also true that there is real evidence to show an animal can survive a high hit UNDER the spine. Obviously the odds are against this happening, but on rare occasions, it can and does.