Before Mark Hutchinson became the founder and CEO of a traffic photo enforcement company with hundreds of contracts across 11 states, he was a 19-year-old deputy at the Johnson County Sheriff's Office in East Tennessee, haunted by a crash he couldn't prevent.

A car driving the wrong way had slammed into a dump truck, Hutchinson said. In the driver's seat was a father intoxicated above the legal limit. In the backseat, the driver's 10-year-old son was unbuckled.

Hutchinson remembers sprinting from the wreck back to his car, as this was either 1989 or 1990 — before portable radios. After calling for help, the deputy ran back to the scene.

"As I tried to keep him alive long enough for the paramedics to get there, he didn't make it," Hutchinson said. "And at 19 years old, I wasn't prepared

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