A father who woke up from a coma in 2019 while believing it was still 1980 said his memory had not moved and described his life as a pit of darkness.
Luciano D’Adamo was involved in a horrific car accident in Rome almost four decades ago, but when he woke up in hospital five years ago, he was met with the shocking revelation that he had lost 39 years of his life.
The father-of-two has now spoken out about the tragic incident and his recovery, which has left him experiencing only “flashes of memories”.
talking to Corriere della SerraD’Adamo recalled waking up from his coma at Rome’s Santo Spirito hospital, where doctors asked him who in his family should report his condition.
D’Adamo, who still thought he was 23, told doctors to call his mother and explained that he had been in a car accident.
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.
“I was twenty-three years old and I wanted to get out soon. I didn’t have any serious bruises, just a little confusion on my head,” he told the Italian newspaper.
The doctor asked him if he was married, but still mentally stuck in 1980, DAdamo told him that he would soon marry his 19-year-old girlfriend.
He looked up, surprised, from the medical records and smiled: “Do you understand? Wow, congratulations.” “I didn’t understand what the hell there was to laugh about,” he said.
The confused patient was then quickly introduced to his mother, but did not recognize the woman in the “strange” situation as the hospital quickly ruled it out saying the lady had entered the wrong room.
Another man entered the hospital room and took D’Adamo by surprise when he called him dad.
“Here’s the crazy one,” I thought. He must have been thirty years old, how could he be my son if I am twenty-three?, he said.
‘He takes something out of his pocket with some photos that he shows me. “I don’t recognize any of them, I don’t understand who they are or what they’re talking about.”
D’Adamo then looked in the bathroom mirror, where in his mind he was a 23-year-old man, but the reflection showed something completely different.
‘I walk in front of the mirror and look at the person who appears. “He is an older man, not me,” he recalled.
‘It’s another person. I scream, the nurses come and try to calm me down. I was terrified, it looked like a horror movie.
The doctors then explained to D’Adamo that it was 2019, but it seemed impossible to him: as for the accident victim, it was still March 20, 1980.
He realized he had lost 39 years of memories and couldn’t believe he could be over 60 years old.
“The doctors couldn’t explain what was happening to me, they told the woman and the child that it would go away, that a lot of patience was enough,” he said.
But five years have passed since D’Adamao woke up and he assures that nothing has happened, ‘my memory is fixed on that day in March 1980 and it has not moved from there.’
His wife explained that the accident had occurred almost forty years earlier, and as she spoke, he revealed that he recognized her.
‘It was her, the nineteen-year-old girl I was going to see on the morning of the accident, at least “my” accident; he said, remembering that she showed him her wedding photos.
D’Adamo said he still has no memories, but he has attempted years of reconstructive work at the Santa Lucia Institute, where he has tried to rebuild his life.
He and his wife prepared folders and notes documenting anniversaries and other milestones in an effort to jog his memory, but D’Adamo revealed that they only sometimes come back to him “in flashes.”
The most intense flashes were experienced with two clear memories of the birth of his two children Simone and Marco.
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 has had to adapt to four decades of change.
“Every detail came back to my mind, I saw them again by living them, not just remembering them,” he said.
‘My memory is like a jukebox, one of those from the summers of the seventies. You put on the hundred lire, the records spin, spin, until they stop and only one goes down to the record player to be heard.’
D’Adamo is still adjusting to having a son about 30 years older than he himself thought he was, and he’s amazed by smartphones and GPS navigation as he reacquaints himself with a brave new world.
‘At one point I saw that there was a black box that I didn’t understand what it was. “Then my wife pressed a button and I realized it was a television screen,” he said.
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.
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.
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.
‘I’m not happy. I can’t be. I found out my mother died and I don’t even remember when I went to her funeral. One of my brothers, there were four of us, I didn’t even recognize him,’ he recalled.
‘I fight, I have a good character. But I’ve only lived a third of my life. There are thirty-nine years of darkness.
‘I have learned that only memory is life lived.
‘The rest goes with the wind.’