I was illuminated by a green laser at less than 2 miles final at night at Manchester, I was unfortunate enough to look right into the beam. I was lucky, I suffered no pain, a little temporary blindness equivalent to loss of night vision, but no eye damage. I was startled by the incident. It was the FOs leg, the autopilot was engaged, we landed without further incident. The experience was, in my opinion, directly comparable to a nearby lightning flash (which I have also experienced) although the duration of the intense light was shorter than that from lightning. ATC were informed, an MOR was filed, the police investigated, no culprits were found.
I didn't get eye damage, I didn't experience any other problems other than a little temporary blindness which was no more than loss of night vision. Even had it been single pilot operations the landing would not have been interrupted.
Had there been pain, long term blindness or eye damage the outcome could have been very different.
The case of police and helimed operations could probably be very different, I can't comment on them because I have no experience of them.