A night out at a popular Bay Ridge restaurant turned into a nightmare for an area physician who claims a bottle-wielding maniac assaulted him in a bloody, unprovoked midnight attack on Friday — leaving him hospitalized with deep gashes to his head and neck.
Dr. Fred Notarnicola, who works at Ovington Medical Associates on Ovington Ave. between Fourth and Fifth avenues, claimed an unidentified man bashed him in the back of the head with a glass bottle inside Cebu Bar and Bistro, at the corner of Third Ave. and 88th Street, while he was relaxing over drinks with a friend after the area’s much-hyped Summer Stroll had wrapped up for the evening.
“Some crazy guy just hit me in the back of the head and my neck, and caused all these lacerations,” the medic said. “There was a lot of blood.”
Notarnicola said he noticed the stocky, 5-foot-eight-inch suspect, who had something written in script tattooed on the back of his neck, after the man began arguing loudly with a female companion.
The physician said he tried to ignore the commotion.
“They were yelling at each other, but after a little while they calmed down,” he said.
The man then snuck up behind Notarnicola and struck him with a bottle before fleeing with the woman past several employees, according to the physician, who said he spent the night in hospital and needed 50 stitches to close his wounds.
Notarnicola added that he’s furious with Cebu’s bouncer for failing to protect him, or stop his assailant.
“I’m a physician, I serve the community, but I can’t go out drinking with a friend without getting assaulted,” he said. “I’m also very upset, because the back of the head and the back of my neck is terrible to look at.”
Gary Rosen, Notarnicola’s lawyer, said cops are studying Cebu’s surveillance tapes to help them locate his assailant. He also vowed a lawsuit if the tapes show that employees ignored the assault.
“It appears to me that there’s a serious problem, that people can go to a bar and then get attacked, and the bouncers who are supposed to be security don’t do anything about it,” Rosen said.
Cebu and the 68th Precinct didn’t return calls for comment.
