After traffic accident

Italian forgets 39 years of his life

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Osterland )

His own wedding, September 11, the fall of the Berlin Wall, two soccer World Cups for Italy - all forgotten: After a traffic accident, 68-year-old Italian Luciano d'Adamo has lost the memory of 39 years of his life.

The janitor of a school in Rome is now working with the help of doctors and psychologists to find his way around again. He has had to gradually get used to cell phones, the euro and many other things again.

Italian thought he was 24 years old after accident
D'Adamo was hit by a car in Rome in 2019 and lost consciousness. When he woke up in hospital, he was convinced that he was in 1980, 24 years old and still living with his parents, as he told the newspaper "Il Messaggero". He did not recognize either his wife or his son. When he saw himself in the mirror for the first time - a man with white hair - he cried out, the Roman told the television station Rai.

At the hospital, he also asked to inform his mother. But then a supposed stranger came into the room. "She called me Luciano. And I wondered how she knew my name." It was his wife.

Later, a 35-year-old man introduced himself - his son. D'Adamo recalls his thoughts at the time: "How can a man who was born long before me be my son? And what woman? I wasn't married, but I was engaged, and not to this woman who had to be almost 60, but to a 19-year-old girl."

Family and friends support D'Adamo 
Since then, the Italian has been trying to reconstruct his past life, also with the help of family and friends - which, however, causes him great difficulties. He also often has to pass when it comes to photos. "Every now and then I meet someone who says hello to me," he told the "Messaggero". "It must be an old friend, but I don't know who he is. So, out of politeness, I pretend to recognize him and return the greeting."