“Monica and I, and our entire family, are mourning the loss of our niece Anne Marie Gieske. He was a gift from God to our family. We loved her so much,” Wenstrup said in a statement.
The deadly crowd surge during a Halloween celebration in Seoul has killed at least 153 people, including 26 foreigners – two of whom were Americans. Another 133 people were injured, according to counts as of Sunday afternoon.
Gieske was a nursing major at the University of Kentucky and was studying in South Korea for a semester abroad.
“There are no adequate or appropriate words to describe the pain of a beautiful life. It is not fair, nor understandable. It’s a loss and it hurts in ways that are impossible to articulate,” university president Eli Capiluto said in a statement.
Gieske’s parents, Dan and Madonna Gieske, have asked for privacy as they mourn the loss of their daughter.
“We are completely devastated and devastated by the loss of Anne Marie. He was a shining light loved by all,” they said in a statement accompanying Wenstrup’s announcement.
The other American identified as among the victims was 20-year-old Steven Blessy, a student at Kennesaw State, Georgia, who was also in the country studying on the ship.
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Nearly two-thirds of those killed in the stampede were women, and more than 80 percent were young people in their 20s and 30s, according to the Associated Press.
South Korea has deployed a 475-member task force to investigate the blast, and President Yoon Seok-yeol has declared a week of national mourning starting Sunday.
