Former Miss Teen Universe Lotte van der Zee is dead at only 19-years-old. To make the already tragic event even more excruciating, the elegant model died one day before her 20th birthday.
Lotte van der Zee suffered cardiac arrest while vacationing in Westendorf, Austria with her family. What was supposed to be a special ski trip to celebrate her birthday ended in tragedy after she fell into a coma. The beauty pageant queen died on Wednesday at a hospital in Munich.
Her parents broke the heartbreaking news on her Instagram page with a photo of Lotte in a red ski outfit. “Our pearl, our everything passed away on Wednesday evening March 6th at 22:47,” Zee’s parents wrote. “It is incredibly surreal that our dearly beloved Lotte is not around us anymore. Our hearts are truly broken. We would like to thank you all again for all the support and heartwarming messages.”
The model’s parents, Bert van der Zee and Eugeniek van der Zee van het Hul, said Lotte went out with her friends the night before her heart attack, but returned “cheerfully and without health complaints.” The next morning, Lotte missed breakfast and her parents checked on her only to find her ill in bed.
Lotte’s sickness “swiftly escalated in sudden cardiac arrest” later that day. The beauty queen was resuscitated by her mother and rushed to a nearby hospital where she was placed in a medically induced coma.
The family says that tests are still being conducted to determine the cause of Lotte’s heart attack.
[FoxNews]