A female culinary star and executive pastry chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant died in a freak hiking accident while on vacation in Hawaii.
Gianna Buzzetta, 26, had her dream to see Makaleha Falls in Kauai come true on Sunday, alongside her boyfriend, Connor Quinton.
‘She had told her boyfriend, Connor, that day, he had fulfilled her dreams and it was the best day of her life,’ her mother, Caty Buzzetta, told KGTV.
As Gianna stood in the pool of the waterfall, the couple heard a noise from a boulder coming loose, fire officials said.
‘Within a second, it happened… The rock dislodged from quite a ways up… then it landed on her,’ her father, Sal Buzzetta, told the TV station.
Connor pulled Gianna out of the pool and ran to seek help because there was no cell service in the remote area. She was airlifted to a hospital, where she died of her injuries.
‘She tragically passed away in a hiking accident at Makaleha Falls Trail in the waterfall of her dreams with the forever love of her life,’ stated a GiveSendGo fundraiser for her medical and funeral expenses.
‘She poured herself, her love and creativity into everything she brought to the table.’
Gianna served as executive pastry chef at Jeune et Jolie restaurant in Carlsbad, California, for three years and helped it win Michelin stars.
Jeune et Jolie owner John Resnick said the news of her sudden death was ‘paralyzing’ for the restaurant community.
‘She was a huge part of the team. Super creative, super talented, incredibly hardworking,’ Resnick told KUSI.
‘Humble, confident, I mean all these things that we want to see in the people we work with, and so from that professional talent standpoint, she was incredible and then just as a person you wanted to be around.
‘Our whole team loved working alongside her.’
Gianna’s passing has also left her family with a ‘paralyzing and unimaginable void’, according to the fundraiser.
‘Her quiet and often “spicy” resilience, determination, tenacity, intuitive insight and gentleness left a lasting impression on everyone she met,’ it states.
‘Her crazy sense of humor lit up a room of laughter that was infectious.’
Gianna’s family has been left to cover expenses from two life flights, two hospitals, her flight back home to San Diego and funeral arrangements.
The fundraiser had received more than $48,000 in donations as of Thursday afternoon.
Gianna died a year-and-a-half after a dad-of-two hiking a trail along the Waipo’o Falls in Kōkeʻe State Park in Kauai fell to his death days after his 41st wedding anniversary.
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