ORLANDO, Fla. — Sarah Grimes and her husband waited more than five years for Social Security disability payments and when they didn’t come, he took his own life. She blames the government.
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We’ve been following Grimes’ story for the last year. She and her husband had been married for 20 years, but a slip and fall in the back of a work truck changed their life forever.
He fell and had to have back surgery and have his neck fused. Following those surgeries, Ray Grimes was in a wheelchair and in constant pain.
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“To slowly watch the person that you love go from doing everything by themselves to, I need you to help me wash my feet because I can’t bend over to wash anything from the chest down kind of thing,” Grimes said. “That’s rough.”
But Social Security always wanted more documents and never approved his benefits while he was alive.
After his death, she appealed to federal court to get his benefits and last November a judge ruled she would get his Social Security benefits.
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When WFTV last spoke with Grimes, the government was trying to figure out what she is owed from December 2020 to February 2024, but now in 2025, Grimes told Eyewitness News that the SSA has told her she will have to wait longer for her money because they are backlogged, and her case is complicated.
It’s been so long that she said she will not be able to pay her rent next month. That could mean losing her apartment and ending up living in her car.
Channel 9 News has reached out to the SSA and is awaiting a response.
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Backlogs in disability determinations were at an all-time high last year with more than a million cases pending
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people die every year waiting. At the end of 2024, that number was about 161,000.
But again, Grimes’ determination has been made and still she waits for the money.
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