Cat Hit By Car - What Decision Would You Have Made?

Firstly, this may be upsetting or gruesome to some people as it involves a cat being hit by a car. If that bothers you, please stop reading now.
Secondly, this incident was done and over with more than a month ago, but I'm still not sure I made the right choice. Sure, it's over, but the same thing may happen to another stray cat and I want to be able to make the right decision.

Basically, a friendly stray was hit by a car and survived. I suspect he had been hit about four days or so before he showed up on the sidewalk. When I found him, his front leg was completely broken at what would be the elbow. There was a large area where everything was torn away from the bone. The vet said the leg would have to be amputated above the elbow. There was a wound higher up the leg that was heavily infested with maggots. He smelled like he was rotting, it was disgusting and horrific. The vet believed he had an infection that may have spread throughout the body, I think she said. She also thought there were internal injuries. The cat was not exactly responsive at that point.

The vet and I discussed all the options. She recommended euthanasia. I said I didn't want to do that if he had a chance, that I didn't want to be someone that just took the easy way out. She said that even if I had all the money in the world, that his prognosis was extremely poor. She said that it wasn't just about amputating his leg. That what he'd have to fight to come back from was just too much. I realized that he'd have to live indoors. I thought about his personalilty and realized he'd live in fear of my other cats just because that's the way he was - fearful. I decided that euthanasia was the best and right option. Though, I would have liked to get an opinion from my primary vet who knows me and who I trust completely with matters like this.

Should this situation arise again in the future, I'm not sure I would or should make the same decision. I don't regret the decision I made because I think it was right for that particular cat. But realistically, I wonder what his chances really were. What decision would you all have made and why? And would the answer depend on the individual cat?

Thank you for having the compassion to take the cat to a vet and make the humane decision for him. The only person or persons who took the easy way out were the ones that left him to roam or failed to fix his mother or the tom cat that helped make yet another cat that lives a life of misery. He did not die alone or forgotten.

I probably would have done what the vet recommended, as sad as it is, as much as you just want to help them, sometimes the best thing you can do is let them go peacefully. The way I look at it, it can almost be more selfish to make the cat suffer through so many procedures and being in so much pain just to make ourselves feel better about the outcome. Of course, it depends on how bad the situation is, but it sounded pretty bad. I'm so sorry you had to go through this, and like the person above said, at least you had the heart to help at all, his last moments were good, I'm sure. R.I.P little kitty.