COTTAGE GROVE -- Oregon State Police are investigating the 18-year-old son of the Cottage Grove School District's superintendent and the son's friend after the two teens attempted to play veterinarian last month to a vehicle-struck deer by duct-taping the animal's broken legs.

The teens filmed their nighttime efforts on the social media application Snapchat. That video later was posted on Facebook.

On the video, the deer can be seen alive and alert, but badly injured. The struck deer had been lifted from the road into the pickup truck that hit the animal. The teens display their handiwork by moving the animal's legs and pressing on what Kory Parent called the deer's "shattered" hip.

They then blindfolded the deer, "tucked him in" with a blanket on the side of the road and left him a banana, all of which Parent narrates on the video. The deer was found dead the following morning by a neighbor, with the makeshift splint still attached.

Facebook user Korte Barkley posted a daylight photograph of the dead animal on the social network, writing, "On my road. Who and why?" According to comments on Barkley's posting, the deer was found near the Mosby Creek Trailhead several miles southeast of Cottage Grove.

The result? Outrage, as 60 people commented on the Facebook photo and added the Snapchat videos taken by Parent. The other teen on camera -- described by Parent on video as "my medical assistant Tuck" -- has not been publicly identified.

Parent, who graduated from Cottage Grove High School this year and was a star player on the school's basketball and football teams, is the son of Superintendent Krista Parent.

Both Kory and Krista Parent did not return messages from The Register-Guard requesting comment.

In social media comments on Barkley's post, however, Kory Parent justified his actions, saying that he was trying to give the deer a "fighting chance." The deer had been struck by "Tuck's" truck, Kory Parent said on social media.

Kory Parent claimed on social media to have returned hours after the nighttime bandaging and slit the deer's throat.

Commenters were horrified by the videos.

"That really pisses me off. So wrong! So cruel. Whoever did it should suffer the same fate!" Facebook user Erica Dunbar wrote.

"Wow. Just wow. I hope he gets in trouble. That's cruelty. He??...??duct-taped its leg with a 2x4! Just put it out of its misery. Oh my god. I am so upset," Facebook user Julie Oberfoell wrote.

"Kory Parent, I have known you since you were born and am so angry with you right now," Kit Pitcher wrote on Facebook. "This is hideous!??...??You absolutely know this was wrong and cruel. You were not trying to help that suffering deer. I just don't even know anything more to say other than I truly am beyond devastated you would do this."

Kory Parent called those who criticized his actions "keyboard warriors."

"Jokes (sic) on everybody here because when my buddy hit it (with his pickup truck) and I came to look at it, it appeared only his back leg was broken," Parent wrote. "I was going to slit his throat, but I wanted to see if I could give him a fighting chance, so I wrapped his leg to see if he could even walk on it.

"I came by and checked two hours later and he couldn't walk at all, then I did what anybody would do and slit his throat. Next I called OSP??...???and told them everything that had happened. They told me that I hadn't done anything wrong and told me to take it to the bridge and put it there so public works could come get it on Monday. My advice to everybody on here would be to not shoot their mouths off before they know the full story and both sides. That's all I have to say."

Oregon State Police Lt. Cari Boyd declined to confirm whether Kory Parent had reported the incident to state police.

However, she did confirm Tuesday that an investigation had been opened and that troopers were looking into the incident.

Oregon wildlife law states that nothing in the law "is intended to prohibit any person from killing any crippled or helpless wildlife when the killing is done for a humane purpose." It's unclear whether any state law addresses the question of putting a splint on an injured wild animal.

--Chelsea Deffenbacher/The Register Guard