It is normally a 4-thousand dollar procedure. But for a select few - like Noe Santos, the corrective eye surgery here at Lasik Plus in Westbury is absolutely free. The glasses he's worn since high school are gone.
The 25-year-old Santos is a former army sergeant who lost his left leg and two dear friends nearly five years ago in North Baghdad... That's where a roadside bomb blew up his army humvee. The Iraq War veteran qualified for the free surgery through the Wounded Warrior Project created by the chief operating officer of Lasik Plus.
Dr. Damon Pettinelli says, "It's a good feeling that you just kind of feed off of the patient when they've just gone through their procedure and they are so happy afterwards."
Dr. Pettinelli has operated on four veterans through the wounded warrior project.
He says based on the sacrifices they've made, the cost of the procedure was paid - many times over - on the battlefields of war.
