Police officer, 26, dies by suicide after complications from LASIK, parents say

Warning: This story discusses suicide.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

A 26-year-old police officer in Pennsylvania died by suicide after his life became unbearable due to complications from LASIK vision correction surgery, his parents say.

Ryan Kingerski experienced double and blurry vision, saw starbursts, floaters and ghostly rings around objects, suffered from dry eyes, eye pain, “terrible headaches” and had what he described as “a buzzing in his face” after undergoing the procedure, his father notes.

The family is in anguish but wants to speak out to raise awareness about the risks of the surgery. Some experts and patients have been warning about the “devastating” potential long-term side effects of LASIK, as TODAY.com previously reported.

“It's been terrible, but we feel that other people need to know that they don't have to go through what we're going through because of LASIK,” his father, Tim Kingerski, who lives in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tells TODAY.com.

“Do you have a loved one that you love more than life? Imagine your life without them every day, when they had no health issues or anything wrong with them. There’s a part of us missing.”

Ryan Kingerski served in the Penn Hills Police Department for three years, a job he’d wanted since he was a little boy, his parents say. His father was a police officer and his twin brother, Jacob, chose the same career path.

The young police officer died on January 25, 2025, five months after undergoing LASIK.

“While we don’t know the clinical details of Ryan’s case, we do know that the answer to the question of why a person chooses to die by suicide is complex and most often related to depression and emotional trauma,” Dr. Stephen D. McLeod, CEO of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, tells TODAY.com in a statement.

“We have no idea what role LASIK itself might have played. Regardless, this is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to Ryan Kingerski’s family.”

Kingerski’s father insists his death was not a mental health issue. “This was a LASIK issue,” he says.

'I Can’t Take It Anymore'

Ryan Kingerski had been wearing glasses and contact lenses to correct his vision since junior high school and was looking forward to no longer needing them, his father says.

In August 2024, Kingerski underwent LASIK in both of his eyes, an elective procedure in which a laser is used to remove a thin layer of tissue in the cornea, permanently changing its shape and improving how it focuses light on the retina, resulting in sharper vision, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Kingerski’s vision problems started immediately after surgery and became progressively worse, his father recalls.

“He was unable to go back to work. He struggled to just do the things that he loved to do,” Tim Kingerski says.

"It was like looking through a dirty window — that's how he described his vision after LASIK." Kingerski reached out to a corneal specialist for help with his symptoms and was told his corneas were thin and that his problems were irreversible, according to his father.

The 26-year-old could no longer play golf or video games with his brother and his friends, his father says. Even watching TV was difficult, he adds. Kingerski's mother also observed these behavioral changes.

The young police officer didn’t have a history of depression or mental illness, and was always a happy, outgoing person, his father says. He “100%” blames the eye surgery complications for driving his son to take his own life.

The family shared a review Kingerski posted online in November 2024 in which he wrote the procedure destroyed his quality of life.

Kingerski left behind a suicide note, writing that “LASIK took everything from me. I can't take it anymore,” his father says.

Risks and Benefits

LASIK is generally considered safe and has a high patient satisfaction rate, but like all surgical procedures, it carries certain risks, the FDA says in a statement.

“The FDA takes any loss of life very seriously and continuously reviews the latest evidence to ensure strong, science-based recommendations that protect the health and safety of all Americans,” an FDA spokesperson tells TODAY.com.

More than 40 million LASIK procedures have been performed worldwide, according to the American Refractive Surgery Council, which calls it “an excellent option for vision correction for those who are good candidates.”

"There is no scientific evidence correlating LASIK to suicide," the council says in a statement to TODAY.com.

"While recent news stories may raise questions, individual cases don't reflect the broader safety profile established through decades of research over thousands of studies."

But some LASIK patients can develop “debilitating visual symptoms,” including glare, halos or double vision, the FDA notes on its website.

Up to 46% of patients who had no visual symptoms before LASIK reported at least one visual symptom three months after surgery, a government study found.

Some patients can also develop severe dry eye syndrome, which can cause discomfort and blurring, the FDA noted.

Side effects after LASIK usually go away over time, but in rare cases, they may not go away, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Up to 75% of LASIK patients had ongoing chronic dry eye symptoms four years or more after undergoing the procedure, a recent study found.

There are Reddit pages, websites and Facebook support groups devoted to LASIK complications started by patient activists like Paula Cofer of Tampa, Florida, who previously told TODAY.com she suffered from extremely dry eyes and other problems years after undergoing the eye surgery.

"It's a disastrous procedure affecting people in a real way," Dr. Edward Boshnick, an optometrist in Miami, Florida, told TODAY.com. He specializes in treating patients who’ve experienced LASIK complications.

After Ryan Kingerski's suicide, his parents filed a complaint with the FDA's medical devices division, detailing their concerns about their son’s LASIK surgery. Tim Kingerski shared an email the family received from the FDA in response, which noted there's been under-reporting of patient injuries by ophthalmic clinics. TODAY.com reached out to confirm the FDA’s response and under-reporting but did not immediately hear back.

How to Report a Problem

While most patients are good candidates, LASIK is not for everyone, the American Academy of Ophthalmology cautions. It recommends patients talk with their ophthalmologist to understand the potential risks.

The FDA has a list outlining who is not a good candidate for LASIK.

The agency says it regulates the lasers used for the surgery but doesn’t have the authority to tell doctors what they tell their patients about it.

That would have changed under proposed FDA guidelines in 2022, which would have required that patients considering LASIK be told “in simple, lay language” about the benefits and risks of the procedure.

The proposed labels — which have not been implemented — would have disqualified people with thin corneas, for example, a condition Ryan Kingerski found out he had after undergoing LASIK, his father says.

Ryan Kingerski also felt the potential complications were not fully explained to him by his doctors at LasikPlus in Pittsburgh, he adds.

LasikPlus did not respond to TODAY.com requests for comment, but the company sent a statement to KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, noting each patient is provided with a copy of the informed consent form at the pre-operative appointment for review — “typically days in advance of the subsequently scheduled treatment. The consent form addresses the recognized risks, benefits and alternatives of the proposed procedure."

“Legal requirements prevent us from speaking to the specifics of any patient, but suicide generally cannot be reduced to any single cause. To be clear, there is no clinical evidence linking suicide to LASIK eye surgery,” the statement read.

Patients who’ve had a LASIK complication can report the problem to the FDA via an online form.

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