Car Accident (non-emergency)

Question
I was in an unfortunate accident earlier tonight and would greatly appreciate any insight on a couple things.  A rabbit crossed the road in front of me on a country road at night.      It was safely across and stopped on the side berm, and I thought everything was safe, so I honked the horn as I approached, just to encourage it to keep going.  But at the last second, it turned around and ran in front of me and I hit it.  The poor little guy did not make it, and I had a few questions concerning the incident.

First, is there anything that can cause or help avoid this in the future?  Specifically, does honking the horn just frighten and/or confuse the rabbit, and is that why it turned around and ran back?  What about flashing brights - is that more likely to be helpful or confusing?  Also, do things like deer whistles help alert animals such as rabbits to the car's presence?

Second, I was hoping for any insight on what I could have done after the accident.  I stopped and went back and found the rabbit in the road.  It was very sad because the rabbit's head and front legs were fine - it was looking around relatively calmly and moving its front legs.  But it's back legs were obviously broken or paralyzed and a lot of the fur from its back and sides was missing.  I was a bit surprised that there wasn't any visible external injury - only about a nickel-sized scrape where some of the fur had come off.  Everywhere else the fur was missing you could see the rabbit's skin.  It was very smooth and whitish, but not bleeding, and there were no other visible injuries.

I got a bag and picked it up by the scruff of the neck and moved it off the side of the road.  Since it is winter here, there is snow on the ground and I didn't really think about that at the time.  But I put him down and looked over him as my wife called to ask about any nearby vet.  The rabbit was still looking around and moving his front legs, but the back legs were still not moving at all.

After a couple minutes, the rabbit seemed to be breathing a little more slowly, and I realized that maybe being on the cold snow wasn't very good for it, especially since it had lost so much fur.  I went to get a shirt from the car to wrap it up, but when I got back it quickly passed away.

I know this is a little rambling, but I guess I'm wondering how I could have handled it differently and anything I could have done better.  Did laying it in the snow contribute to its passing?  Externally, it was in surprisingly good condition under the circumstances and if it had a chance of making it I would have gladly taken it somewhere.  If this ever (God forbid) happens again, would it be better to wrap the animal up to avoid cold/shock?  I was also surprised at how the fur had come off without really having any damage on the skin.  Is that not uncommon?

Thank you for your time.  I just feel awful about this and would like to know if there is anything I could have done differently and anything I can do to avoid repeating it.  For whatever it's worth, we took the little bunny off into the woods away from the road, so any scavengers wouldn't meet the same fate, and apologized to the bunny and said a little prayer.

Answer
Dear Chris,

I'm sorry for the delay in answering.  To tell you the truth, it's because this one was so hard to read that it took me this long to figure out how to answer.  I'm so sorry you had this terrible experience.  Just reading about it is going to give me nightmares for weeks.

But that said...I don't think there was much you could have done to save the rabbit.

You don't say where you are located, but the behavior you describe is typical of jackrabbits (particularly Black-tailed Jackrabbits), which are actually hares.  They just love to run alongside the road at might, and they seem to like to race in the beam of headlights.  I don't need to tell you that this isn't the most adaptive behavior.  When I've driven across the desert in Nevada and Idaho, I'm just overwhelmed and distressed by the vast number of jackrabbit roadkills.  They just don't understand the danger:  it's not something their ancient ancestors had to worry about.

It sounds as if the impact may have made the poor little thing go into shock almost immediately.  Jackrabbits are incredibly wild, and if he was just sitting calmly, he was already shutting down, his body telling him that it was just too badly injured.  If he couldn't move his back legs, then he probably had a spinal or pelvic injury that would have been difficult or impossible to repair--though in some cases a soft tissue injury can prevent movement if it's very painful.  No way to know which of these it was.

And as you had the misfortune to learn in person, rabbits and hares have skin like tissue paper.  The slightest rift in the skin can expand to horrific proportions, and it sounds as if the impact with the car must have torn off a large portion of skin.

What could you have done?  Probably not much to save him.  But in your shoes, I think I might have tried the following:

1.  Determine where the torn off skin was rolled up (probably along his backside, and it can scrunch up so small you might not know it's there, as the skin is so incredibly thing), and gently pull it back over the exposed areas.  The most deadly part of something like this is the loss of fluid and the exposure to the environment that the skin prevents.  The skin would probably stay in place to some degree, but wrapping the animal in a towel might have helped to keep it in place.

2.  Get him to a veterinarian ASAP for treatment--or euthanasia, if the injuries were too extensive.  I would not leave him on the road to die a slow, painful death.  (Which you didn't!)

In my own home, we have extensive emergency supplies to repair massive injuries, if we have to deal with them.  But on the road, there's not much you can do unless you have a medical kit complete with sutures, disinfectant (povidone iodine solution), super glue (actually developed as surgical glue, and only later marketed as hardware glue), etc.  

It really is merciful that the poor animal passed away so quickly.  I really think that the shock took over, and that he succumbed to that, which is supposedly a relatively peaceful way to die.  

You are very kind to have been so concerned for him, and to look after him until he passed.  And it was even more incredibly compassionate and considerate for you to lay him away from the road so that scavengers would not also be struck by cars. If only everyone were so mindful.

I'm not sure any of this will help erase the terrible images you had to see, but know this accident wasn't your fault:  jackrabbits do this weird thing, and they are so fast and unpredictable that these things happen.  I hope you can take some comfort in knowing the shock that washed over him probably erased pain and fear, and that he very likely passed without undue stress.

I hope this helps.

Take care,
Dana