Deer from North Carolina survived an arrow that pierced five ribs

A grisly photograph from the Utah Conservation Officers Association. The story unfolded in North Carolina some 35 years ago: a hunter shot a deer and, when he began to butcher the carcass, discovered a strange formation in the region of the ribs. The later reconstructions were carried out by scientists to whom the fragment of skeleton was shown by its new owner, the son of that very man, who had received the unusual bones as a gift. So what had happened? Many years before its death, this deer had already met a hunter, who came out against it with arrows, and the animal managed to escape, though seriously wounded. The arrow, apparently from a crossbow, passed through five ribs and lodged there, its shaft broken off. The deer was lucky enough to run away; inside the wound, it seems, a blood clot formed, which kept the animal from bleeding to death. The scientists then propose two scenarios: either a bony-cartilaginous callus grows up over the blood cocoon around the foreign body, or the damaged tissues of the body themselves turn into bone, and it turns out that such things happen too