I stepped out in 1980 and don’t have any memory of next 39 years – my life is a well of darkness, says amnesia victim
A DAD who woke up from a coma five years ago says he cannot remember anything that’s happened after 1980.
Luciano D’Adamo, 68, was in a brutal hit-and-run incident in 2019, but when he woke up, the father-of-two believed he was still 23.
Since then, he has struggled to adjust to reality, with D’Adamo speaking to Corriere Della Serra about the tragic incident and his recovery.
Of his memory loss, D’Adamo said: “I am not happy. I cannot be.
“I found out that my mother died and I don’t even remember when I went to her funeral.
“One of my brothers, there are four of us left, I didn’t even recognise him.”
“I fight, I have a good character. But I have only lived a third of my life. Thirty-nine years are in the dark.
“I have learned that only memory is life lived.
“The rest flies in the wind.”
He told the Italian newspaper: “I was twenty-three and wanted to go out soon, I had no serious bruises but just a little confusion in my head.”
D’Adamo said he was confused when his son, in his 30s, entered his room calling him dad.
He said: ” ‘Here’s the crazy guy’.
“He must have been thirty, how could he be my son, since I’m twenty-three?
“He takes something out of his pocket with some photos on it that he shows me.
“I don’t recognize any of them, I don’t understand who he is or what he’s talking about.”
It wasn’t just his family members D’Adamo didn’t recognise, it was his reflection as well that looked entirely different.
Expecting to see his 23-year-old face, D’Adamo was faced with his 62-year-old reflection.
He said: “I walk in front of the mirror and look at the person who appears. It’s an elderly gentleman, not me.
“It’s someone else. I scream, the nurses come and try to calm me down. I was terrified, it seemed like a horror movie.”
It was then that the doctors explained to D’Adamo that he had lost 39 years of his life, and that it was 2019 – not March 20 1980.
He said: “The doctors couldn’t explain what was happening to me, they told the lady and the boy that it would pass, that all it took was a lot of patience.”
However, five years have passed since D’Adamo woke from his coma and his memory hasn’t returned.
D’Adamo said he still has no memories, but has tried years of reconstructive work at the Santa Lucia Institute where he has attempted to stitch his life back together.
He and his wife prepared folders and notes where they documented anniversaries and other milestones in an effort to jog his memory, but D’Adamo revealed they only sometimes come back to him “in the form of flashes”.
As D’Adamo lost four decades of his life in the painful memory lapse, his experience of being an old man was also wiped out.
While he was able to get on with children very easily, he struggles to socialise with them as a granddad.
The dad said he still has many challenges to overcome as he tries to get his memory back.
He said: “Sometimes I say that I would like to fly on a plane because I have never done it.
“But then my wife tells me we ahve been on a plane together, and even flew out to Paris.”
For the past five years, doctors as well as psychologists have been working with D’Adamo and his family to help him get his memory back.
He has now started his life over and works in a school, DailyMail reports.
However, he never received justice – or compensation – for the tragic accident in 2019.
The hit-and-run driver was never found.