Miami Doctor Accused of Attacking Uber Driver Calls It 'Biggest Mistake of My Life'
Anjali Ramkissoon was placed on administrative leave from her medical job.
-- The Florida doctor captured on video lashing out at an Uber driver in downtown Miami says she is ashamed of her actions and says she and her family have been targeted since the video's release.
"I see a person that is not me. I’m ashamed," Anjali Ramkissoon said today on "Good Morning America" of the video that shows her berating the driver of another customer's Uber. "I still can’t watch the entire video."
"Every time someone brings it up or tries to ask me, 'What was happening at this point?,' I just, I can’t," she said.
Ramkissoon, a fourth-year neurology resident, can be seen in the video berating the driver, trying to hit him, and throwing items out of the window of the passenger seat, and ultimately trying to knee the driver.
"In the moment I was just so angry. I wasn’t really thinking and if I could take it back I would," Ramkissoon said. "There is absolutely no excuse for my actions. I am ashamed. I am so sorry. I've hurt so many people with this."
Ramkisson says her father was admitted to the hospital that day and, just minutes before the incident, she and her boyfriend of two years had split.
"I was extremely stressed out that day," she said. "It was probably one of the worst days of my life and I was caught at my lowest moment. Nothing like this has ever happened."
"I made a huge mistake, the biggest mistake of my life, and that person is not me," Ramkissoon said.
Yes,” Ramkissoon replied when asked if she’d been drinking. "I’d actually driven to that place that night but I did not want to drive my car home so I left my car there and that was why I was trying to get the Uber to get home."
The customer who ordered the Uber car that Ramkissoon tried to get in filmed the heated incident on a cellphone and posted the video on YouTube.
Ramkissoon, who can be heard telling the Uber driver, "I'm getting really like belligerent right now," says she was cyberbullied after the video's release.
"My family was targeted. Their address was leaked," she said. "I’ve received messages telling me that I should kill myself, that I should have been raped that night."
"I think it’s ridiculous and I’m here to own up to what I did," Ramkissoon said. "I’m taking responsibility for it and I’m asking for forgiveness."
The Uber driver declined to press charges against Ramkissoon, for which she says she is "grateful." Uber told ABC News they’ve suspended Ramkissoon’s account while the incident is investigated.
"We actually settled while we were out there. I paid for the damages and I apologized to him and he accepted my apology," Ramkissoon said. "I’m so thankful that he did not press charges, that he did not have me arrested."
Ramkissoon has been placed on administrative leave and removed from all clinical duties, by her employer, the Jackson Health System. An internal investigation is underway to "determine if any disciplinary action will be taken, up to and including termination," a hospital spokesperson told ABC News last week.
"Yes I’m on administrative leave from my job right now but at the same time, this has not just affected my career, it’s also affected my family. It’s affected my personal life," Ramkissoon said. "I get it. I did something extremely horrible and I'm also extremely sorry for it."
When asked how she can move forward from the incident, Ramkissoon says she hopes she can stand as a lesson to others.
"I did it and I’m ashamed of what I did and this would never happen again," she said. "At the same time, I think that I should also speak out to send a message out to people and the public to be careful and use my story as a lesson to be careful what you do in public because the things that we do can be taped and we can have to suffer severe ramifications for these things."