A cancer surgeon was arrested on Thursday after she allegedly rammed a NYPD officer in the leg with her car as she tried to avoid a double-parking ticket in Manhattan.
Dr Rachel Wellner, a breast cancer specialist at Montefiore Hospital, hit the gas in her white Volvo as two patrol cops issued her a ticket at approximately 11am in Hell’s Kitchen, sources said.
The 40-year-old doctor was stopped two blocks way by another police officer, who then arrested her.
The cop who was hit was taken to New York Presbyterian’s Weill Cornell Medical Center. The extent of his injuries are unknown, but he is expected to recover.
The incident began when Wellner saw the cops writing a summons for her car, and the doctor got upset, cursing at the officers and jumping on her car, a source told NBC New York.
She then got into her car and tried driving off with the driver’s side door open, hitting an officer in the shin.
Wellner tearfully described herself as the victim, however, when she spoke to the New York Post following the arrest.
‘I double parked the car and got a ticket,’ she said, claiming she drove off because ‘the police used force on me. I was beaten up.’
The doctor is now facing several charges, including reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.
A Bronx cancer surgeon who allegedly rammed a cop in a bid to avoid a parking ticket claimed she — not police officers — is a hero because she treats dying patients, officials said.
Dr. Rachel Wellner, 40, a breast cancer specialist at Montefiore Medical Center, was arraigned Friday on charges of resisting arrest, leaving the scene of an accident, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.
“I am a doctor. I have patients who are dying, I’m the hero, the cops are not. I don’t accept a summons. The police assaulted me,” she told authorities late Thursday, according to Assistant District Attorney Julia Sear.
Two cops were issuing her a ticket around 11 a.m. Thursday when she allegedly yelled, “Help, the police are assaulting me!”
One of the officers tried to cuff her but was struck by her Volvo as she sped off, according to a complaint. She was collared on West 53rd Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues.
A disheveled and teary-eyed Wellner, her hair messily pulled back in a ponytail, was released without bail Friday and walked out of court wearing wrinkled brown slacks and a black blazer.
She and her defense lawyer Alan Futerfas declined to comment — but she defended herself Thursday night.
“I double-parked the car and got a ticket,” she tearfully told The Post, adding that she drove off because cops “used force” on her.
“I was beaten up,” said Wellner, who is due back in court April 12.
“If you put my name out there, I will lose my job as a surgeon.”
The injured cop was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center.
A Connecticut native, Wellner received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1997. She attended medical school at UConn and completed a master’s degree in public health at Columbia University, according to her bio.
On her website, she describes herself as “dedicated to combining compassionate, high-quality care.”
The surgeon recently worked in the Dominican Republic to help people without access to medical technology.
What is she going t do when her pipes freeze in the winter call a brain surgeon because a plumber its too lowly to do the job? What if her power goes out is she going to operate on the electrical wires? I once had a brilliant freshman student who asked me how he could be a poet when his father made toilet seats and I replied could you imagine living without toilet seats.