Friday 23 September 2022 06:35 AM Ellidy Pullin recalls moment she 'knew' Olympic snowboarder husband Alex ... trends now
The widow of champion snowboarder Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin has recalled the moment she 'knew' he had died in a spearfishing accident in a new memoir.
Ellidy Pullin said she was coming home from walking the couple's dog, Rummi, in the park on July 8, 2020 when she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest.
Her husband was spearfishing at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast at the time when Ellidy said she experienced the sudden chest pain.
'The sharpness stopped me in my tracks, knocking the wind out of me and almost forcing me to my knees,' she wrote in her forthcoming memoir, Heartstrong.
'I clenched my heart and Rummi looked up at me as if to say, 'What the hell, Mum! Are you okay?'
'After 30 seconds, I was. I brushed the pain off as anxiety – maybe I needed more sleep, or some vitamins or a massage – and kept walking.
'Looking back, I think that was the moment Chumpy left this earth – the moment my heart shattered.'
Ellidy Pullin (left), the wife of Olympic champion snowboarder Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin (right), has recalled in a new memoir walking home from a park with her dog, Rummi, when she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest - the moment she believes her husband died in a spearfishing accident
'Looking back, I think that was the moment Chumpy left this earth – the moment my heart shattered,' Ellidy said of the sudden chest pains she experienced as her boyfriend was spearfishing off Palm Beach on the Gold Coast
Ellidy Pullin said she will 'never forget' the look on a police officer's face at the beach on the day he died when she confirmed to him the type of tattoo Chumpy Pullin had on his torso
Pullin, 32, drowned that day. It's believed he was spearfishing by himself at an artificial reef at the beach when he was spotted on the ocean floor by a snorkeler.
He was a two-time boardercross world champion and had represented Australia at three Winter Olympics.
The excerpt was published in the Courier-Mail's Q Weekend magazine.
In January this year Ellidy recalled the moment she found out about the accident to the Australian Women's Weekly after a neighbour told her about 'an incident down at the beach'.
'Initially, I felt a bit of a shiver but I thought, 'It's not Chumpy, it can't be Chumpy',' Ellidy remembered.
'Then I went, 'No, I need to go down there.' I just didn't have a good feeling about it.'
She recalled arriving at the beach and telling a policeman that her partner was out diving.
She then confirmed to police Pullin had a large axe inked on his ribs when they asked if her partner had a distinctive tattoo.
Ellidy said she will 'never forget' the look on the police officer's face in response.
'The feeling was my heart shattering before my brain even knew. He obviously held his breath for a second too long and blacked out … He lost consciousness peacefully.'
In October 2021, 15 months after Alex's passing, Ellidy gave birth to their first child, Minnie Alex, conceived with sperm posthumously taken from the former Olympian
In her memoir Heartstrong, Ellidy recalls meeting Pullin at a 21st birthday party on Sydney's northern beaches where the future Olympic star arrived wearing a denim jumpsuit that made him look 'like a full-on mechanic, but hot'
In
