This is a warning to all men and women who wear a badge. The ones sworn to serve and protect. Your eyes are essential. There is a promise with the LASIK procedure that you will improve your sight. You will no longer be impeded by glasses and contacts.
What if I told you, the risk far outweighs the reward? What if in 12 seconds your eyes could be permanently damaged, stealing your life, your identity and your purpose? What if you found out the damage was irreversible and you were gaslit, ignored and found yourself in isolation? This is exactly what happened to our nephew. It is with deep pain, heartbreak and regret…we share his story.
Officer Ryan Kingerski of Penn Hills was a beloved son, a twin brother, a dedicated civil servant, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin, and a loyal friend. He was always smiling. He loved life. He loved kids and made them feel seen and safe. He had a serious girlfriend named Maura.
There was supposed to be a future wedding—not a funeral.
Ryan went in for a routine LASIK procedure at LASIK Plus Pittsburgh on August 15, 2024, with a promise he’d be back to work with perfect vision in three days. Instead, he awoke to double and blurry vision, ghosting, floaters, halos, eye pain, intense light sensitivity, and debilitating migraine headaches that plagued him for months.
In 12 seconds, his eyes were ruined.
Beyond frustrated and desperate for help, Ryan turned to the “5-star” clinic, but they dismissed his concerns and repeatedly told him he just needed time to heal. He had been assaulted and left with an invisible disability, unable to perform the ordinary, once-effortless tasks of daily life.
Ryan was forced to take short-term disability. His reality and dreams were shattered, now seeing the world through broken eyes. He could no longer fulfill his oath to serve and protect because the LASIK industry ignored their own oath to “do no harm.”
Months passed, but healing never came. Ryan sought further help from the “5-star” clinic and outside experts, yet solutions remained elusive. He left an honest review detailing his experience. In response, his trusted surgeon fired him as a patient. Ryan then found and commented on the 2022 FDA LASIK Guidance document—a proposed update to warn the public about the dangers of LASIK, aimed at the majority, not the minority, which would drastically reduce profitability to the industry. That document was shelved and ignored due to outcries from LASIK surgeons and manufacturers, further exposing their gross prioritization of profit over patients.
Ryan was forced to apply for long-term disability. On January 25, 2025, Mutual of Omaha denied his claim, stripping away his last remnants of hope.
The next day, Ryan took his own life.
To the LASIK industry that destroyed his eyes: Ryan is not an anomaly. There are many like him. This is known. This is ignored. He was a referral, a bonus, a number, a monetary value—and now a hidden statistic, not significant enough to matter or prompt guideline changes. This is deplorable, disgusting, and unimaginable to our family and all families affected by this negligence. THIS IS NOT OKAY.
We seek to continue Ryan’s work to expose the dark reality behind the LASIK promise—the LASIK lie. Our mission is to warn the public about an industry that sweeps thousands upon thousands of suffering patients, maimed by trusted surgeons, under the rug while luring the next unsuspecting customer with a promise they cannot guarantee.
The LASIK industry touts a 96% success rate and asserts a mere 1% complication rate. The actual complication rate is startling. However, even if we used their falsely advertised data, this would be 120,000 people (of the approximately 12 million who have had LASIK in the U.S.) that are now disabled.
Struggling and disabled by an unnecessary elective procedure. This is reprehensible. When actual complications are included, the rate increases upwards to a staggering 30% or higher. A number that would suggest an estimated 3.6 million people or more. LASIK’s complication rate is solely based upon whether or not a patient has 20/20 vision post procedure and ignoring ALL OTHER visual distortions and pain.
“Success” is based on “loss of 2 or more lines of best corrected visual acuity.” This means, in order to be considered as having a complication, a patient who could see the 20/20 line with glasses before LASIK can only see the 20/30 line or worse with glasses after LASIK. A faulty test, even if a patient can make out blurry letters are then categorized as 20/20 and to them a success. By defining a complication this way, most LASIK complications aren’t included or reported in FDA data. These complications include chronic dry eyes, persistent eye pain, night vision problems, and migraines just to name a few. This is false advertising. This IS NOT OKAY.
We demand transparency and a major guideline revision to protect patients from Ryan’s fate. Your eyes are essential. The cornea is living tissue with countless nerve endings that may never fully heal after being lasered. This unnecessary elective procedure turns healthy eyes sick. The countless people negatively affected by this butchery have one thing in common. They were all told they were the “perfect candidate.”
These lives, these eyes, are not disposable.
For now, we urge all Law Enforcement to protect their eyes and ask everyone educate themselves with these resources:
Books:
- The Unsightly Truth of Laser Vision Correction: LASIK Surgery Makes Healthy Eyes Sick by Morris Waxler, PhD, with contributors Paula Cofer, Edward Boshnick, OD, and Cynthia J. MacKay, MD
- Making the Cut by Dr. Cynthia MacKay
- Broken Eyes (2024), documentary directed by Dana Conroy
- For people with LASIK complications: Facebook – LASIK Complications Support Group of over 8,000 people.
