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The victim of a devastating hit-and-run accident is recovering after emerging from a coma, convinced it’s still 1980.

Luciano D’Adamo’s last memory is of leaving his home in Rome in March 1980, feeling a sudden, violent impact, and then everything went dark.

When he awoke in the hospital a few days later, he was shocked to discover that the accident had occurred in 2019, with no memory of the past 40 years.

As a result of the car accidents, Luciano did not recognise himself in the mirror as a man of 63, nor – at first – the aged ‘stranger’ coming to visit him: his wife.

As far as he knew, she was still the 19-year-old fiancée he was hoping to marry as a young man, transformed by age and a life together he no longer remembered.

Luciano is still coming to terms with having a son in his 30s—older than the age he remembers himself being—and is fascinated by smartphones and GPS as he reacquaints himself with a radically changed world.

Five years on, the school caretaker continues working with doctors and his family to recover the lost decades, rebuilding relationships with his wife, son, and grandchildren, while gradually reintegrating into life in 2024.

Luciano D'Adamo woke up in 2019 after a car accident and had forgotten the last 39 years

Luciano D’Adamo woke up in 2019 after a car accident, with no memory of the past 39 years.

His last memories are of being a 24-year-old airport worker in 1980

His most recent memories are from 1980, when he was a 24-year-old airport worker.

Luciano, now 68, has faced a long road to recovery, gradually regaining some memories over the years since waking up.

He now works at a school and has steadily reacquainted himself with modern customs and technology.

“I still remember the amazement of riding in a car that showed me a map of Rome on a screen—what we once called the Tuttocittà—while a voice calmly instructed, ‘In 100 meters, turn right,'” Luciano recently told *Il Messaggero*.

After waking up in 2019, one of his first requests was to call his mother. He didn’t recognize the strange mobile device handed to him, nor was he aware that his mother had passed away.

Luciano struggled with the emotional challenge of greeting hospital visitors—”old friends” he’d supposedly known for years—without recognizing any of them. When his wife entered the room, she was a complete stranger to him.

“She called me Luciano, and I wondered how she knew my name,” he recalled.

Seeing his 30-year-old son for what he thought was the first time was also jarring. But perhaps the hardest moment for Luciano came when he saw himself in the mirror. The reflection of an old man with gray hair horrified him, as the years of aging had slipped away without his awareness.

While he had physically aged, his mind remained stuck at 24, wiping away the gradual process of growing older. Though Luciano found it easy to bond with children, he needed guidance to learn how to navigate life as a grandfather instead of a young man, *Corriere della Sera* reports.

Even today, Luciano faces ongoing challenges. “Sometimes I say I’d love to fly on a plane, because I’ve never done it,” he shared with Italian media. “And my wife replies, ‘What are you talking about? We went to Paris together.’ I tell her, ‘You’ve been there—I haven’t.'”

There’s been much to relearn. Luciano, once a lifelong Roma fan, woke up with no memory of the legendary forward Francesco Totti or the club’s championship victories in 1982-83 and 2000-01. He also doesn’t recall the September 11 attacks or the Berlusconi years in Italy.

For the past five years, doctors and psychologists have worked closely with Luciano’s wife and son to help him bridge the gaps in his memory, with some progress along the way.

Luciano does not remember Totti leading Roma to victory in the 2000-01 Serie A season

Luciano has no memory of Totti leading Roma to victory in the 2000-01 Serie A season.

Luciano worked at Fumicino airport in 1980 - and has had to readjust to 4 decades of change

Luciano worked at Fiumicino Airport in 1980 and has had to adapt to four decades of change.

The only memories Luciano has recovered are a drawing of a stork, the name Matteo, a date, a time, and the words “PN 2300″—the tag on the crib of his first grandchild, born in 2014.

His last clear memories before the accident are from March 20, 1980, when he was working as a ground operations officer at Fiumicino Airport.

Starting over, he now works at a school and has gradually accepted that he’s no longer a young man, realizing he can no longer dash up the stairs like he used to.

Luciano has yet to receive any compensation for the 2019 accident, and he still has no clear idea of what happened, as the hit-and-run driver was never caught.

 

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