A man who woke up from a coma believing he was 23 rather than his actual age of 68 has recalled being confused to experience his grown son calling him dad.
Amnesia is perhaps one of the most horrifying things a person can go through, wiping key moments and memories from your brain, sometimes for good.
For 68-year-old Luciano D’Adamo, his life would be changed forever in 2019 after he was the victim of a brutal hit-and-run accident, leaving him in a coma.
However, this was only the beginning of D’Adamo’s ordeal, as he woke in a hospital only to realise he couldn’t remember anything since exiting his house in Rome in 1980.
Everything that had happened in the following 39 years had been completely wiped from his memory.
Luciano D’Adamo lost 39 years of his memories after a hit and run accident (TG1)
Recalling his first moments after regaining consciousness, D’Adamo told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra that he had asked a nurse to call his mother, unaware that she had passed away in the following four decades.
“I was twenty-three and wanted to go out soon, I had no serious bruises, but just a little confusion in my head,” he explained.
One of the most devastating parts of D’Adamo’s story is that he couldn’t remember who any of his loved ones were – including his own wife and son.
Recalling the moment his son came into the hospital room, the 68-year-old didn’t recognise him at all, and was instead baffled by the idea of a fully grown man calling him ‘dad’.
Luciano doesn’t remember anything after 1980 (Family handout)
Explaining what was running through his head at that moment, he said: “[I remember thinking] Who is this madman? He’s about 30, how can he be my son when I’m 23?
“I don’t recognise any of them, I don’t understand who he is or what he’s talking about.”
D’Adamo has also since had to work on rebuilding his relationship with his wife, having no memories of their married life together as well as coming to terms with the fact that his mother had passed away. “I discovered that my mother died and I don’t have a single memory of going to her funeral,” he explained.
The Italian has since taken up work in a school (according to a report in The Daily Mail) and is focusing on rebuilding his life and getting up to speed with all the technological advancements which have happened in the four decades of lost memory.
Luciano is now working to rebuild his life (Family handout)
D’Adamo has also worked with doctors over the past couple of years to try and piece his memory back together, but has since struggled to come to terms with his new reality.
“I am fighting, I have a good character, but I have only lived out a third of my life; 39 years are in darkness,” he said.
“I have learnt that the only life lived is that remembered. The rest is lost in the wind.”