Large rounds like .50 have a significant shockwave which contributes a lot of energy in wounding but I'd be surprised by the near-miss death. Would like to see better quality evidence as I'm always happy to be educated. I suspect the round went through the deer but not encountering anything solid enough to trouble it drilled a neat round hole and went through, causing a lot of shockwave damage in doing so.
Once a round hits the victim, the shockwave it transfers in to the body dumps energy at tissue margins (eg bone-muscle, lung-fluid where there's a change in density) and can cause injury quite a long way from the wound track and cavity. SO we might see a nerve injury on the right when the gunshot wound is on the left, for example.