How many, have nursed a knocking Rod home?

I was following my high school buddy one day and the 300 six in his ferd truck broke. It locked up tight after some banging. The weird thing was the only external evidence was a hole in the bottom of the oil pan where a pushrod had punched its way out. The pushrod was laying in the road and looked fine. It looked like some one had shot a rifle at the pan from the inside. We didn't take it apart so not real sure what caused that. It never ran again.