Yes, while I think a broad-headed nail, or failing that a 'washer' would have been used, so it could be hammered down firmly onto the wrist, almost crushing it, if the nail were correctly placed, there'd be little chance of the wrist pulling off it.
This is quite a good medical account - albeit from a Christain apologetics site:
However... the wrist was considered to be part of the hand ... At the base of the wrist bones, the strong fibrous band of the flexor retinaculum binds down the flexor tendons. Iron spikes driven through the flexor retinaculum easily could have passed between bony elements and held the weight of a man. This location would require that the nail be placed through either: (1) the space between the radius and carpal bones (lunate and scaphoid bones); or (2) between the two rows of carpal bones...
A spike driven through this location, however, almost certainly would cause the median nerve or peripheral branches to be pierced (see Figure 2),
resulting in a condition known as causalgia. The median nerve is a major nerve that passes directly through the midline of the wrist and services all but one-and-one-half of the muscles in the anterior portion of the forearm. It passes directly under the flexor retinaculum of the wrist as it supplies motor innervation to the three thenar (thumb) muscles and the first and second lumbrical muscles. This large nerve also provides sensory innervation to the palm, as well as to digits two and three in the hand. Any damage to this nerve would have caused extraordinary pain to radiate up the arm, then through the axilla, to the spinal cord, and finally to the brain. Primary arteries travel on the medial and lateral aspects of the wrist, and therefore would be spared if the spike had been driven into this location. [Scientific studies—using volunteer college students—have shown that people suspended from crosses with their arms outstretched in the traditional manner depicted in religious art have little problem breathing ... Thus, the oft’-quoted idea that death on the cross results from asphyxiation would be a factor only if the hands were nailed in an elevated fashion above the head of the victim.] And so, with His hands firmly nailed to the cross and His back bleeding and emaciated, Christ was hoisted onto the rough-hewn, upright stake.
full article:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?article=145