With only a pilot and one passenger on board it was well under gross weight and would fly most happily with one engine. I suspect one of two things, the engine that was still running was not producing full power or very poor airman ship.
ps
Do not turn into your dead engine!
However, my limited understanding of Cessna 310s is that they look much better than they fly, especially with only one engine running. Also, those big tip tanks don't help the handling much, either, but they sure look cool!
So, I think he's probably a decent pilot, as well as being a lucky one.
Whatever his interpretation of his situation might have been in the moment, right or wrong, and crashing is almost always ruled pilot error and likely will be in this case, too, he didn't miss it by much.