Born in Italy, chef Luciano di Adamo remembers his life after a five-year coma, triggered by a DTs episode in Rome, finding himself in 1980. He recalls everything up to that year, but nothing afterwards, which left him puzzled in the doctor's notes that described his condition as unique and unusual, as reported by a British newspaper.
Di Adamo (68), a former chef, was hit by a car in 2019 when he went out to dispose of trash. After losing consciousness in the hospital, he learned from those around him that an incident occurred on March 20, 1980, when he left home to visit his girlfriend.
He insisted that he was 23 at the time but, seeing his reflection, exclaimed: 'I saw an old man, not myself,' describing his feelings as a horror film experience. In his son's room, he noticed a small black device on the wall – it was a television.
'I’m adjusting everything, I really enjoy it. I log into (Google) and study. Everything else unfolded in the wind,' says the Italian chef, whose memory froze in 1980.
The psychotherapist who treated di Adamo in Santa Lucia hospital in Rome notes that memory loss due to trauma might erase recent memories or even everything, but he has never heard of a 39-year memory loss that leads to a specific date.
His wife was the first to visit di Adamo in the hospital: he did not recognize her, just as he did not recognize his girlfriend from 1980. Later, his son approached him and said: 'Hi, dad, how are you?' Recalling that moment, di Adamo thought: 'Who is this stranger? He looks like a thirty-something, how could he possibly be my son, if I myself have not even experienced my twenties yet?'
Since then, his wife has been talking to him about those decades that he lost, using photographs and videos, but di Adamo only remembers certain moments, including the birth of his children. 'I realized that I only live for what I remember,' he notes.
Di Adamo is fighting to restore a normal life, triggered by a debilitating condition that he and his family are going through as they try to rebuild their relationships. Recalling a football match, he detailed to his son the goal in the net, comparing it to the famous Totti goal, scored at Euro 2000. Each time, delving into the events of the last 40 years, he celebrated Rome's victory in championships and watched the winning recording of the Italian national team at WC-1982, marveling at it as if broadcasting live.
He shares that despite the harshness of ongoing treatment, he is unable to fully restore his memory, not recalling events and people who lived in the last 39 years. 'I am boring, I am a good person, but I’ve lived only a third of my life here on earth, 39 years in the dark,' he admits.
Extraordinary cases of similar memory loss have already been noted in Manchester in 2008 when Naomi Jacobson forgot after a daytime nap and did not remember two previous decades: she thought she was 15 years old, but her memories returned after eight weeks.
