MADISON COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) — On the afternoon of Sunday, November 3, more than five weeks since his death, a memorial service and procession was held in memory of a sheriff’s deputy who died in the Helene floods.

Michelle Lynn Elliott Quintero, a major with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, died shortly after 7:00 a.m. on September 27.

“She was everyone’s mom,” said Ashlyn Quintero, Michelle’s daughter. “I remember friends coming to the house, coming in and always saying, ‘Mom, we’re home. It was never Michelle or Mrs. Quintero; it was always ‘mom’ and that’s what she tried to be, not just for Isaac. and all our friends, but for anyone who needed a mom figure; that was her, she was there to step in, especially through her work.

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Quintero worked at the sheriff’s office for 17 years, beginning her career as a dispatcher.

She then worked as a sheriff’s deputy and telecommunicator and eventually served a long-term sentence in the detention center.

“We housed juveniles for the state, and even with those juveniles, she loved them and they respected her,” Sheriff Buddy Harwood said. “She was a mother figure to those young people, something some of them had never had.”

Quintero belongs to a police family.

“The support has been very strong here, but it has been hard, it has been very hard,” said Isaac Quintero, Michelle’s husband.

Isaac works for the State Department of Corrections; his children and brother wear Madison County Sheriff’s patches on their arms.

“You’re helping the community and you see how many people that mom had helped before that,” Ashlyn said. “They come back and say, ‘Oh, I know you, you’re Michelle’s daughter or you’re Michelle’s son,’ and it’s nice to be able to help people that she’s helped in the past and just hear what they’ve had to say. “

On Sunday afternoon, his law enforcement family gathered at East Yancey High School and processed at Brookstone Church in Weaverville, where his memorial service was held.

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“We have to be there for our people when they hurt when they cry because, at the end of the day, we’re not ten feet tall and we’re not bulletproof,” Harwood said. “We are all still human.”

His service concluded with his end-of-guard call.

Quintero was 48 years old.