Man who woke up from coma convinced it's 1980 reveals most 'painful' thing about facing reality

A man who woke up from a coma convinced it's 1980 has opened up about the most 'painful' thing he's had to endure when facing reality.

Luciano D'Adamo, who hails from Italy, was hit by a car in 2019 aged 63 and suffered life-threatening injuries before falling into a coma.

When he eventually awoke from the coma just a few days later, D'Adamo, who is now 68, believed he was actually 24 back in 1980.

Luciano D'Adamo fell into a coma after being a hit-and-run driver drove into him in 2019 (TG1/RAI)

The last thing D'Adamo remembered was leaving his house in Rome in 1980, before feeling a blow and seeing darkness.

After waking up, the man felt as if the last 39 years of his life had been erased, as he was totally unable to remember anything.

He first realised the exponential memory gap after he saw his wife was no longer the 19-year-old girl he remembered from his youth, but had aged into a 'stranger', Il Messaggero reports.

"She called me Luciano and I wondered how she knew my name," he said.

D'Adamo was also shocked after seeing his son in his 30s - years older than he believed himself to be.

And it wasn't just his family that startled the man. He had to relearn what a smartphone was, and how to use it, as well as refamiliarising himself again with how a car navigation system worked alongside other technology.

One of the hardest things for D'Adamo, however, was seeing himself in the mirror thinking he was a young man, only to see an old man in his 60s with grey hair looking back at him.

D'Adamo is now working alongside doctors and psychologists to help recover his lost memories (Family handout)

Five years on from the incident, and D'Adamo is now working as a school caretaker and is being helped by doctors and his family to reintegrate into modern life.

"I still remember the amazement of traveling in a car that showed me a map of Rome on a screen, or rather the Tuttocittà as we once called it, while a voice said, 'In 100 meters turn right'," he told the outlet.

Opening up about his future ambitions, D'Adamo told Italian press: "Sometimes I say that I would like to fly on a plane, I have never done it.

"My wife says to me, 'What are you talking about? We were in Paris together'. And I reply, 'You have been there, I haven't'."

D'Adamo, who is working alongside doctors and psychologists to help recover his memories in the near 40-decade gap, has still not received compensation for the hit-and-run in 2019, as the driver was never found.