Lotte van der Zee’s parents revealed the former Miss Teen Universe died after suffering a heart attack while on vacation.
The 19-year-old was on vacation with her family in Austria when she suffered the attack this past February. The model spent two weeks under a medically induced coma.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Once her internal organs started to fail, Dutch news website The AD reports the family made the difficult decision to take her off life support.
“Our pearl, our everything passed away on Wednesday evening March 6th at 22:47,” her parents, Bert van der Zee and Eugeniek van het Hut, wrote on van der Zee’s Instagram page.
“It is incredibly surreal that our dearly beloved Lotte is not around us anymore,” her parents wrote. “Our hearts are truly broken. We would like to thank you all again for all the support and heartwarming messages.”
In 2016, van der Zee was named the winner of the Miss beauty Overjissel contest. The Dutch province, AOL writes, is home to more than 1 million people and borders Germany. The model was crowned Miss Teen Universe in 2017.
“We had to let her go. It could not be otherwise,” Eugenie said. “It was good like that; she has had to endure a lot in the past few days.”
The beauty queen had been feeling ill the day before she went into cardiac arrest, the outlet writes. Her mother was present during the attack and was able to resuscitate her. She was then rushed to a hospital in nearby Rosenheim before being flown to Munich for more specialized neurological care.
“I can not understand this,” wrote plus-size model Joann van den Herik on van der Zee’s Instagram page. “Lotte was a beautiful, sweet, spontaneous girl and made this hard world a lot nicer and more enjoyable for me.”
Miss Teen Universe organizers issued a statement sending their condolences to van der Zee’s family on Instagram following the tragic news.
“Losing someone we loved is not easy, but knowing that we have been able to be part of her life, it hast been amazing journey, we now realize that we were blessed the your share your life and career with us,” the statement read. “[Van der Zee] Our deepest condolences to your family and friends.”
Bert and Eugenie told press after news broke that they want tests done to explain how their daughter could have suffered a heart attack at such a young age.
Photo credit: Instagram / Lotte van der Zee
