A former Miss Teen Universe has died aged just 20 after suffering a heart attack.
Dutch model Lotte van der Zee suddenly fell ill while skiing in Austria with her family, and spent two weeks in a coma before life support was withdrawn on Wednesday.
Posting on her Instagram, Lotte’s parents said she had started to feel unwell before having a cardiac arrest, the cause of which is still unclear.
After being taken to hospital in Westendorf, where the family were skiing, Lotte was transferred to a specialist hospital in Munich, where she died.
The model, from Enschede, was named Miss Teen Universe in 2017.
In an emotional post on Thursday, her parents said: “Our pearl, our everything passed away on Wednesday March 6 at 22.47.
“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.”
Lotte had embarked on a successful modelling career since winning the competition, and regularly posted pictures of her glamorous lifestyle to her 155,000 Instagram followers.
Mother Eugenie told Dutch paper De Limburger: “We were already told that we had to take into account the worst, but you cling to hope.
“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.
“It started with her kidneys. She was then put on kidney dialysis, which kept her alive.
“But when it became clear on Wednesday that it would not be okay, she was taken off the machine.
“Lotte has had to endure a lot over the past few days. We did not want any further suffering.”
