In February 2019, Luciano D’Adamo, a 63-year-old man, suffered a severe head injury after being hit by a car in Rome. Upon waking, he discovered he had lost 39 years of memories, believing it was 1980 and unaware of his family, including his fiancée and son. Despite occasional fleeting memories, he remains stuck in the past, grappling with the sadness of his lost life and the realization that he has only truly lived a fraction of his years.
Luciano D’Adamo’s Life-Altering Accident
In February 2019, a remarkable incident occurred in Rome involving Luciano D’Adamo, a 63-year-old man. While leaving his workplace at a school to dispose of trash, he was struck by a car, resulting in a severe head injury. When he regained consciousness in the hospital, the emergency physician asked him basic questions about his identity, including his name, address, and date of birth.
A Memory Frozen in Time
Luciano confidently answered these initial queries, but when the doctor inquired about his marital status, he responded with an unexpected statement: “I said I would be married in four months, on July 20. My fiancée is 19 years old,” he recounted to a local newspaper. The doctor later mentioned a visitor who had come to see him. Luciano assumed it was his mother, but it turned out to be his 19-year-old fiancée, whom he had not recognized, having lost 39 years of memories.
During this time, Luciano’s son also visited, but he too remained a stranger to him. To help jog his memory, his son showed him photos from the past, but this only confused Luciano further. “I couldn’t grasp who he was or what he was saying. I was just wondering about the film in this miniature camera,” he remarked.
The following day, a shocking realization hit Luciano when he caught his reflection in the mirror. “I saw an old man—someone else entirely. I screamed, and the nurses rushed in to calm me down,” he recounted, revealing that he believed it was March 20, 1980, and vividly recalled the day of the accident in Monte Mario, his former neighborhood. It dawned on him that he had no memory of the nearly four decades that had passed.
Since then, Luciano has experienced fleeting moments of recollection, but they are rare. “I remembered nothing—no events, no faces, no places. It felt like those years had never existed,” he explained. The medical professionals were baffled by his condition, advising his loved ones to remain patient as they hoped for recovery.
Five years later, Luciano’s memory has not improved significantly, although sporadic flashes have emerged. “My memory is stuck on that day in March 1980, and it hasn’t shifted at all,” he shared. He has been working on ‘reconstructing’ his past, noting down the scant memories that have resurfaced. However, he expressed a profound sadness: “I am not happy and cannot be. I have only lived a third of my life. Thirty-nine years have vanished into darkness. I have learned that only the life we remember is the life we have truly lived. The rest just fades away,” he reflected.