Mark Hasty is an interesting and humble chap, a firefighter who has saved lives in his native Maryville and again during the deadly and devastating Gatlinburg Fire. Heroes save lives. Heroes walk into flames. Heroes recognize a stroke in progress.
You may call Sgt. Hasty of the Maryville Fire Department (MFD) a hero. That’s not how he thinks about himself. “No, no. I am not a hero. Not at all,” he says. “I do what I am trained to do. We save lives as a team. Together. If someone has a problem, well, that’s why I’m here and I want to be able to help if I can. But I’m no hero.”
Tell that to a man who was part of the Blount County Sheriff’s Office Training Academy this past Jan. 18 at the 911 Center.
When an Academy class begins, Hasty volunteers for the academy’s first three days when the tough physical training is underway. On that chilly Monday morning the recruits were doing a crawling drill and Hasty was watching.
“There was a guy in the middle of the line and when I glanced at him I noticed that something was not right. He was using only his left side to crawl. I got to him to check on him and when I yelled at him he didn’t respond. When I tapped him on the shoulder he turned and looked at me and stroke was written all over his face, He couldn’t even talk,” Hasty says. “He was in his mid-40s. I called 911 for an ambulance, got my medical gear and started an IV. We have medical histories of all of the recruits so I knew what meds he was taking.”
Hasty continued working on him. The AMR Rural Metro ambulance arrived in two minutes. “They got him to Blount Memorial really fast and thankfully he made a full recovery.” Hasty’s quick recognition of a stroke in progress saved this man’s life.
A hero? “Nope, it’s what we are all supposed to do,” he says.
Just like the last three days in November 2016 when he and fellow MFD firefighter Tony Clark and two Alcoa firefighters – Kevin James and Shane Rogers – volunteered to help with the out-of-control firestorm surrounding Gatlinburg. A call came in that 12 people were trapped in their vehicles, surrounded by fire.
“We drove as far as we could and got to within about a quarter mile of them and then had to walk and cut trees and branches to make our way straight up a hill to reach them with fire and smoke all around us,” he recalls. “We found them all and helped them down the hill to our engines. Propane tanks were going off and you could hardly see. But we saved all 12 … along with two dogs and a cat and a turtle.”
A hero? “Just doing our jobs. Happy we were there to help them.”
Hasty, 40, is a 13-year veteran of the MFD who works out of Station 2, a quarter mile from his home he shares with wife Ashlee and their six blended-family girls – Lanna 20, Bailey 16, Elle 16, Natalee 12, Payton 12, and Hadlee-Rose, 7. He lives with seven females.
Before this work and family began, Hasty graduated from Heritage High School in 1999 where he played football. After Heritage, he went straight to the U.S. Marine Corps and served for eight years, including a 2005 deployment as a combat engineer to Fallujah, Iraq, with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines and 2nd CEB.
The Hasty name is a familiar one in Blount County. His mother,
Gaye, is the Blount County clerk, and his father, Mark, is the plant manager for Roundhill Arms in Lenoir City.
Interestingly, his toughest call ever was family-related. An alarm came in late 2015 to Station 2. The address was the home of his soon-to-be wife, Ashlee, who was at work. His future step father-in-law, Joel Jones, was there doing some work. Mark and partner Randall Moore responded. “He was dead when we got there. We worked on him but couldn’t bring him back and I had to call her and tell her. It was hard, really hard. Massive heart attack.”
Two weeks ago, on June 8, Hasty was one of six MFD engineers to be promoted to sergeant, a first of the department. He also serves as a field training officer, a part of the job he’s passionate about.
“Lots of people don’t understand how hard the training is and how important it is for what we do,” he says.
This hero (sorry Sgt. Hasty) is a happy guy. He’s full of love for his family, his community, his job and his country. “I live in this community and in our response area. I have a vested interest. It’s a fun life with all of this going on,” he says. “I’m blessed.”
Tom King writes Our Town Heroes each Monday. Suggest future stories for him at tking535@gmail.com or call him at 865-659-3562.