Santa Barbara Law enforcement verified that remarkably adopted Instagram individuality and entire world traveler Lee MacMillan, 28, was strike and killed by a prepare final Friday by the intersection of Point out and Hollister roadways in Noleta.
Law enforcement experienced issued an warn that 7 days inquiring members of the community for any information on MacMillan’s disappearance, noting she experienced remaining her property without auto, keys, wallet, or cell mobile phone. Whilst there was no suicide notice, police expressed concern that MacMillan’s death had been self-inflicted.
On December 5 final yr, she mentioned her struggles with melancholy, anxiousness, and suicidal thoughts at some length on an Instagram online video submit. In the article, she connected her mental wellness struggles to putting her individual requirements last and all those of other people very first.
From the outdoors, MacMillan’s lifetime would have seemed one of experience, wellbeing, beauty, freedom, and romance. Due to the fact 2016, MacMilllan experienced been an achieved world trotter, touring from Canada — in which she was born —to the tip of South America in a Dodge Sprinter with her then-boyfriend and fellow traveler, Max Bidstrup, and their Australian shepherd, Occy. Jointly they — Max & Lee — liked a following of 495,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel.
They would announce the parting of their ways late in 2019, and in early 2020 MacMillan set out on a Sprinter Tour of Morocco with two other social-media-savvy highway warriors. COVID, however, would convey that trek to an abrupt halt immediately after a few months, and commencing about 6 months in the past, MacMillan settled into Santa Barbara.
In the wake of MacMillan’s dying, close friends have expressed shock at her loss even though praising her for coming out as a mental wellbeing advocate.
If you or anyone you know is pondering about hurting by themselves, get in touch with 9-1-1 or the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 (800) 273-8255. A listing of regional methods can be located at countyofsb.org/admhs.
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