14/06/2025
Some good observations from a sad situation
Dr Pierdante Piccioni woke up one day to find he'd forgotten the last 12 years of his life.
Grappling with a strange new world, one question tormented him. Had he been a good man? Or bad?
After a car crash in 2013, Pier woke up in hospital thinking it was 2001. He couldn't recognise his wife, and when his adult sons walked into his hospital room he asked them who they were.
"I thought they were two actors or liars," he says. "I couldn't understand why the world had changed. But the reality was I had changed. In a few hours, I had lost 12 years of my life."
He was amazed by the technological advances which had occurred - the internet, tablets, social media, smartphones. His world had been completely transformed. Not only that, but he found out his mother had died three years before.
"It was the worst experience a person can have, not to remember what your mama told you before dying," Pier says.
Angry and reeling from the shock, and no longer able to practise medicine, Pier struggled to find the man he had once been. He asked his hospital colleagues, was he a good man - or bad?
He was shocked by their answer. They told him he had not been a nice person in the last 12 years. He had been promoted to the chief of the hospital emergency department, and had been a harsh and angry boss.
To find out more, he read all the emails he had written during that time - almost 80,000 of them. "I had it confirmed that I was a bad man, a bad chief, a severe person," says Pier. "I was very sad when I read those mails."
He felt alone, a foreigner in a world he didn't understand. He decided the only option was to become a better person. He learned to listen more, and to speak less. He resolved to be a better husband too, and found himself falling in love with his wife again.
He says the experience has taught him many things, but the most important one is this:
"If you want to live, you don't have to continue to think of the past. Think of every day from now until the future," he says. "Make new, beautiful memories... this is my mantra."
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