I remember Ken Topaz's ejection (although I didn't know him). He came out sideways and as you said, shot across the grass. His seat, with him still in it, finished in an upright position some distance from the runway. Nothing deployed (drogue, chute etc.).
I was told many years ago, that practice asymetrics accounted for more accidents than real ones. And yet strangely, little was, to my knowledge, discussed about it in crew rooms. But I seem to remember that a Pprune topic a few years ago discussed the problem in quite some detail and figures were bandied about.