How did a backup/restore cycle fix a broken MSSQL DB?

Last week, I had an issue with a SQL 2k8r2 server, where backups of a DB in full recovery mode failed, .trn was never truncated, and it grew to fill the available storage.  I fixed the backup issue, ran a manual backup, and the DB was functional again, except for a specific table.

A simple select * from

would yield a fatal error and stack dump.  In my repair efforts, I made a backup of the database and restored it to a temporary name, and tried the select * from on the restored version.

To my surprise, the table was completely fine.  

How did a backup/restore cycle unbreak my broken table?