Lotte van der Zee, the model and pageant contestant who was crowned Miss Teen Universe in 2017, has died following a heart attack.
The teenager from the Netherlands was vacationing in Austria with her parents when she suffered a heart attack the day before her 20th birthday.
Van der Zee remained alive in a coma for two weeks before passing away.
Her family posted an emotional tribute on the model's Instagram page, describing how "incredibly surreal" it was to lose her so suddenly.
"Our hearts are truly broken," they wrote. "We would like to thank you all again for all the support and heartwarming messages."
In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Limburger, van der Zee's parents say she came back to their ski resort after a night out with friends "cheerfully and without health complaints." But the next morning, it was obvious something was gravely wrong.
Later that day, Van der Zee suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed to a hospital, where she was put in a medically induced coma. She was later transferred to another hospital in Germany, but suffered organ failure and finally passed away on Wednesday.
"We were already told that we had to take into account the worst, but you cling to hope," Lotte's mother Eugenie told De Limburger.
"Last Monday we saw that this hope faded. Lotte was up, you could see that. The last days Lotte's organs started to go, while no more brain activity was measured."
Van der Zee's parents say they plan for more tests to identify what caused their daughter's heart attack.
[H/T: Yahoo]
