The victim of a horrific hit-and-run car accident is recovering after waking up from a coma convinced it was still 1980.
Luciano D’Adamo’s last memories are when he left his house in Rome in March 1980, felt a sudden and violent blow and then saw darkness.
Waking up in the hospital a few days later, he was traumatized to learn that the accident had occurred in 2019 and found himself without any memory of the last four decades.
Luciano did not recognize himself in the mirror as a 63-year-old man, nor, at first, as the “unknown” old man who came to visit him: his wife.
As far as he knew, she was still the 19-year-old fiancée he had hoped to marry when he was young, transformed by age and a life together he no longer remembered.
Luciano is still adjusting to having a son who is about 30 years older than he himself thought he was, and is amazed by smartphones and GPS navigation as he reacquaints himself with a brave new world.
Five years later, the school caretaker is still working with doctors and his family to rebuild lost time, building new relationships with his wife, son and grandchildren, and slowly reintegrating in 2024.
Luciano D’Adamo woke up in 2019 after a car accident and had forgotten the last 39 years
His last memories are of being a 24-year-old airport worker in 1980.
Recovery has been a long journey for Luciano, now 68, who has steadily recovered some memories in the years since he woke up.
He now works in a school and has gradually become familiar with modern customs and technology.
“I still remember the amazement of traveling in a car that showed me on a screen a map of Rome, or rather the Tuttocittà as we called it before, while a voice said: ‘In 100 meters turn right,’ he told Il Messaggero . recently.
Immediately after waking up in 2019, he asked to call his mother. He didn’t know what strange mobile device he had been given or that his mother had died.
Luciano also found it difficult to politely greet hospital visitors – “old friends” he has known for years – and not recognize them.
When his wife walked in, she was “a stranger.”
“Luciano called me and I was wondering how he knew my name,” she said.
As far as he knew, it was the first time he had seen his 30-year-old son.
But the most painful experience for Luciano was seeing himself in the mirror, the outlet reports.
He had lost the memories of constant aging for four decades and was horrified to see a gray-haired old man staring at him.
While Luciano had aged, his lost memories had also erased his experience.
He found it easy to get along with children, Corriere della Sera informationbut he needed help to relearn how to socialize as a grandfather and not as a 24-year-old.
Today, he says he still has challenges.
“Sometimes I say I would like to fly on a plane, I have never done it,” he recently told Italian media.
“My wife says to me, ‘What are you talking about? “We were together in Paris.”
‘And I say, “You’ve been there, I haven’t.”‘
There has been a lot to relearn. Luciano was a lifelong Roma fan but woke up with no idea who the club’s iconic striker Francesco Totti was or the titles won in 1982-83 and 2000-01.
He doesn’t remember the 9/11 attacks or the Berlusconi years closer to home.
Doctors and psychologists have worked with Luciano’s wife and son for the past five years to help him overcome the gaps in his memory, with some progress.
Luciano does not remember Totti leading Roma to victory in the 2000-01 Serie A season
Luciano worked at the Fumicino airport in 1980 and had to adapt to four decades of change.
The only memories that have returned are the drawing of a stork, the name Matteo, a date, a time and the inscription “PN 2300”, the label on the crib of his first grandson, born in 2014.
Luciano’s last memories before the accident were of working as a ground operations officer at Fiumicino airport on March 20, 1980.
He has started again, working in a school. And has found some acceptance that He is no longer a young man and cannot run up the stairs like before.
Luciano still has no compensation for the 2019 accident, and no idea what exactly happened.
The hit-and-run driver fled and was never found.