Alex Pullin’s girlfriend leaves heartbreaking note on door: “Respect my privacy”
Alex Pullin's mourning girlfriend has left a tear-jerking note on her front door just a day after losing her partner in a tragedy on the the Gold Coast.
Alex, 32, was a world champion snowboarder who lost his life after going spearfishing in the water at Palm Beach.
He suffered a blackout at about 10:30 am on Wednesday and did not wake up despite paramedics performing CPR for 45 minutes on Pullin.
On Thursday his girlfriend Ellidy Vlug honoured her boyfriend with a handwritten letter that she taped to a front door on the Gold Coast home.
“Dear media, thank you for your thoughts, this is a very difficult time for me and I ask that you respect my privacy during this period of grief,” Ms Vlug wrote.
“Know that Chumpy absolutely loved life and lived life to the full.
“He lived for us – his family, our puppy Rummi, our amazing friends and the home we made together.
“He was living his dream, our dream.
“I am eternally grateful that I have lived my life with him and I am deeply saddened that his life has been cut short.
“Rest in peace my beautiful man.
“Kind regards, Ellidy.”
Earlier that day, Ms Vlug told Daily Mail Australia she last saw her boyfriend alive moments before he'd decided to go for a dive, telling him: “Love you, watch out for sharks.”
Ms Vlug then went for a walk by herself, and when she returned home, she was met by a neighbour at her door telling her a spear fisher had been pulled from the ocean.
She then raced to the beach with her mother, where she was told the body belonged to her boyfriend of eight years.
It's been little more than 24 hours since his death, and Ms Vlug and the couple's friends and family can still hardly believe their loss.
“I don't know what I'm going to do without him,” she said.
But the 28-year-old model and business owner says she is determined to make him proud.
The couple were parents to one-year-old Rummi, their beloved Kelpie puppy, and Ms Vlug said Pullin absolutely adored her.
“He was a family man through and through. Me, and his sister and parents and Rummi were his world,” she said.
Ms Vlug shares a tight-knit relationship with Pullin's parents and sister.
They all live in New South Wales, so were physically separated during the COVID-19 lockdown, but remained in close contact with each other.