A 30-year-old Indian-American woman doctor, captured on video assaulting an Uber driver in Miami, has apologised for her actions while drunk.
"I see a person that is not me. I'm ashamed," Anjali Ramkissoon said of the YouTube 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 told ABC News.
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.
Ramkissoon has been placed on administrative leave and removed from all clinical duties by her employer, the Jackson Health System. An internal probe is underway to "determine if any disciplinary action will be taken, up to and including termination," a hospital spokesperson said last week.
"In the moment I was just so angry. I wasn't really thinking and if I could take it back I would," Ramkissoon said on the incident that happened last week.
"There is absolutely no excuse for my actions. I am ashamed. I am so sorry. I have hurt so many people with this," she said.
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 had been drinking. "I had 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 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 did not press charges against Ramkissoon, for which she says she is "grateful." Uber said they have suspended Ramkissoon's account while the incident is investigated.
