Lotte van der Zee, a Dutch beauty queen and former Teen Miss Universe, died at the age of 20 after suffering cardiac arrest on a skiing holiday. Photo / Instagram
A former Miss Teen Universe has died after suffering a heart attack on a ski trip in Austria.
Holland model Lotte van der Zee fell ill while on holiday in Westendorf, Austria, with her family, The Sun reports.
Lotte's heart attack happened a day before her 20th birthday, with her parents making the decision to turn off life support two weeks later.
The beauty queen, who won the prestigious pageant in 2017, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Munich.
Her distraught parents shared the tragic news on social media along with a photo of their daughter wearing a red ski outfit and beanie hat while enjoying the snow.
"Our pearl, our everything passed away on Wednesday evening March 6th at 22:47. It is incredibly surreal that our dearly beloved Lotte is not around us anymore," they wrote.
"Our hearts are truly broken. We would like to thank you all again for all the support and heartwarming messages."
They told Dutch media that Lotte had been out friends the night before her heart attack but that she had returned "cheerfully and without health complaints."
However, she did not get up for breakfast and when went to check on her they found her ill in bed.
They wrote on their daughter's Instagram that her sickness "swiftly escalated in sudden cardiac arrest" later that day.
She was resuscitated by her mother and rushed to a nearby hospital where she was placed in a medically induced coma.
Lotte was then taken to a specialist hospital in Munich where she suffered organ failure, according to reports.
Her family said that tests are still being carried out to determine the cause of Lotte's heart attack.
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