one time on a camping trip several years ago me and my best friend drove into town around dusk on a supply run. The car in front of us hit a huge beautiful swan and left it mangled and flapping like crazy in the middle of the road. Mind you its a back country road so you're going like 70 mph. I stopped and backed by truck up enough to hit the swan once more and frankly more calculated to end the misery I saw. My friend didn't understand why i cared so much or did it. Still bothers me to this day thinking about it but that huge beautiful bird would've sat there on that country road until the coyotes came at night and ate it alive if it even lived that long. I've told my wife that story a handful of times and shes a mental health councilor so you can imagine how that went over lol.
Sometimes life just sucks.
Years ago when I lived with my ex-wife, our son was being fussy and nothing could get him to sleep. So we decided to go for a drive to put him to sleep. We were on some country road, and there was a truck that was coming the other way. As we passed them, there was a shadow that was right behind it on our side of the road. Before I could even react, there was a thump right below the headlight, and then I felt it go under the wheels. I slammed on the brakes and threw the car into park and jumped out.
It ended up being a dog, (thankfully it died instantly), and we waited for that other vehicle to come back for a half hour. It never did, and the dog wasn’t wearing a collar so we couldn’t even call the owners.