I had the a similar thing happen, but I found my deer and arrow, two weeks later, what was left of it in an area that I never checked. It doubled back on my and I missed when it broke off the blood trail again. I kept on going in the same direction as the original path of travel, when I cut back and turned off again. Who knows why. It was hard to tell where I hit it, but it looked like it was a high shot. The arrow had a bunch of fat on it.
On the other hand, it could have lived. My brother shot a buck and nearly sliced his hand open (only a glove) on a broadhead that was lodged in the right ham. It was encased in a cyst of some sort...weirdest thing I ever saw while butchering a deer. I was cutting the other ham when I heard him yell out.
Deer are amazing with their will to survive.