I hit one 3 years ago in the same spot. There was a loud "crack" sound when the arrow hit and the deer ran off with most of the arrow hanging out. I recovered the arrow a little ways down the trail. It had penetrated about 6 inches and a blade was broken off. There was a decent blood trail for 250 yards before it petered out. I saw the deer weeks later and there was a knot where I hit it.

I hit one low one year, come to find out I had just nicked a single lung, he clotted up and lived. Only reason I know all this is the land owner shot him a couple weeks later during shotgun season.. Very distinctive rack, I couldn't and probably wouldn't believe it if I had not seen the deer myself. Of course he had no arrow or broadhead left in him either.

Wow, that is incredible. Its hard to believe that a deer could survive something like that after bleeding quite a bit.

It's quite possible the loud pop you heard with the 1/4 away shot was the arrow hitting the shoulder blade which deflected the arrow up through his shoulder a little ways. Those shoulder blades can easily stop an arrow from penetrating the vitals. Just an idea.
It is amazing what those animals can survive. Last year I hit a doe a little lower than that, waited 3 hours and went tracking. A little blood and hair where I shot her. I picked up a small blood trail about 20 yards away that got heavier over the next 50 yards where I found a spot that she had bedded down in. It looked like someone had poured out a 5 gal. bucket of blood. I knew I was mere feet away from finding my dead prize. Over the next9 hours and up to 1/2 mile away at some points I never found another drop![:@]

Amazing how resilient these animals can be.

Deer are amazingly tough animals. I've seen myself, and heard plenty of stories to this effect. You did the right thing, going all out to try and find the deer, but sometimes a deer will survive a hit that seems to be fatal.

I think you do all you can to recover the deer (which you did) and if you can't find it after a long, thorough and smart search, chances are, it is going to live to see another day.

sounds like my bigun story i shot a big 140s class 10 point in the xact same spot only found a few drops ran forever and is still runing tonight

This is the pic from my buck this year, a few weeks ago. I was about 22 feet above the deer at 18 yards. the arrow still deflected upward about 3"(even though splitting the rib!!!) and luckily smashed into the spine instead of going over like it sounds yours did. Arrows DO NOT (& all projectiles) always keep going the diection they are headed when they first make impact. You can minimise this by not taking severely angled shots but sometimes....

Yup.
The whole top 1/3 of the chest if off limits.
The bad news is that a hit upthere looks good, adn will even leave a good blood trail after a few dozen yards whenenough blood finally soaks into the fur so that more blood can run down to the ground and be seen on the trail. A deer with a muscle hit that bleeds well can be recovered if it is pushed and kept bleeding by motion and good blood pressure. You just may have to follow it a few hundred yards, and be prepared to shoot again.