AN AMESBURY woman who died in a New Zealand hostel “lived life to the full” despite suffering from epilepsy, her family have said.

Hana Pitt had been backpacking for more than three years when her family were told she had died in a Wellington hostel after a suspected seizure while getting ready for work on October 20.

Her mum, Jacqui, paid tribute to her “kind, generous and funny” daughter, adding: “She took the view of ‘I’m doing this and nobody’s going to stop me’, and that was Hana. She was bubbly and fun and did what she wanted to do.”

Hana, aged 32, was taking medication for benign epilepsy, which she was diagnosed with as a child, and would experience infrequent seizures.

Her older brother, Adam, said Hana did not often disclose that she had epilepsy and said her illness was “a source of frustration for her”. Jacqui said at age 11 Hana said she wanted to stop taking her medication so she could be “normal”. “We sat down and we talked and I said to her, ‘you must not let this stop you doing anything, Hana. You must go and live your life to the full and don’t let it stop you doing anything’,” Jacqui said. “But she took my advice and she did everything.”

Hana left Salisbury to go travelling in August 2014, and visited Iceland, Canada, America and Japan before spending two years in Australia.

She had just spent a year in New Zealand and had her visa renewed for another year when she died. During that time she went canyoning, scuba-diving, white water rafting and even walked over the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge.

She had also just been accepted at a college in Oxford to study a law degree.

“Every single day she was away she phoned me, wherever she was, and that was 1,175 days when she died,” Jacqui said.

Tributes to Hana poured in from all over the world, and Jacqui said the family had been “inundated” with flowers. And when Jacqui and Adam needed to raise £6,000 to bring her body back to the UK, Hana’s friends and family members raised £4,500 within three days.

Jacqui said she would call Hana “my beautiful challenge”, adding: “I think that probably says it all. She was focussed, if she wanted to do something she did it.”

Hana was born in Salisbury District Hospital, living in Amesbury her whole life, attending St Edmund’s School and working in Salisbury.