Her ex-husband hired hitmen to kill her 25 years ago. Now she is fighting to keep life-saving care.
BOCA RATON — Heather Grossman was warned that her remaining life expectancy was about seven years.
But for more than two decades, she has survived and endured the physical injuries and emotional scars from Oct. 14, 1997, when hitmen hired by her ex-husband tried to kill her, and nearly succeeded.
Grossman was shot and left paralyzed from the neck down. She said she finds purpose in sharing her story in hopes of helping others escape domestic violence and abuse.
“I have a lot of faith,” said Grossman, a former Boca Raton resident who now lives in Arizona. “I love my children. I do things that make me happy, like mentoring newly injured spinal cord patients. I love talking and lecturing about domestic violence, about the warning signs and how to get help. That makes me really happy.”
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Heather Grossman says family's money depleted after years of care.
But for Grossman, now 56, there’s also the daily struggle of life as a quadriplegic, the result of the attack against Grossman and her second husband, John Grossman, as hit men targeted them as the couple waited in their Lincoln at a stoplight at Federal Highway and Yamato Road in Boca Raton.
The aftermath has left Heather confined to a wheelchair and in need of round-the-clock home nursing care. With insurance only covering part of her medical bills, Grossman's parents have helped her pay her expenses over the years.
But with her family’s specialty footwear business, which provided much of the needed revenue, closed after her father’s death in 2018, and with her 80-year-old mother's funds nearly exhausted, Grossman said she needs financial help.
She is concerned that without help, she could be sent to a nursing home, which she fears would not be able to provide her with the care she needs. She requires 24/7 supervision, including the monitoring of a ventilator that she relies on to fill her lungs.
“It’s a life-and-death situation,” Grossman said. “Because I am on a ventilator, I have to have people here at all times. … I always have to have a nurse or a family member by my side, because if the alarm goes off to my ventilator, that means it’s plugged and then I have to be suctioned to clear my lungs.”
She estimates her monthly medical expenses to be about $9,600. To help with her expenses, a family friend and Grossman's three adult children, Joseph, Ronald and Lauren, have created an online fundraising page with a targeted goal of raising $500,000.
Through the first week, the page had secured more than 30 donations totaling more than $5,000.
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Grossman, who was 31 at the time of the shooting, suffered a nearly fatal wound, her life saved by Boca Raton paramedics who were in the vicinity that day picking up lunch at a nearby Publix. In the aftermath of the attack, doctors told Grossman she might live another seven years.
Her first husband, Ronald Samuels, is serving a life-prison sentence plus 120 years after being convicted in 2006 on conspiracy and attempted first-degree murder charges. A judge ordered Samuels to pay his ex-wife more than $300,000 in restitution, but Grossman said she doesn't anticipate that she will ever see that money.
Her second husband, John Grossman, whose father was a part-owner of the Minnesota Vikings NFL team, survived the shooting attack with a wound to his chin. He died in March 2005, more than a year after Heather divorced him after the relationship became abusive.
“Both husbands were not nice men at all,” she said. “After all that I have been through, I don’t feel like I’m a very trusting person.”
Grossman wrote about her experiences in her 2018 autobiography, “Paralyzed in Paradise.” Her story was the focus of a 2022 episode of the Court TV program "Someone They Knew," hosted by Tamron Hall. Grossman frequently speaks to domestic-violence awareness groups, hoping to encourage other women to leave abusive relationships before it’s too late.
“If I can save one or two lives, out of talking to people and making them realize they have to leave that situation, take control of their lives or their lives won’t change," she said. "I’ve had a lot of people tell me, ‘After hearing you and hearing your story, it gave me the courage to get out of my domestic violence (situation).’ "
Help is available for people experiencing domestic violence. Call the Palm Beach County Victim Services 24-hour helpline at 561-833-7273, or the 211 Helpline for Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him atjwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at@JuliusWhigham. Help support our work:Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: South Florida woman paralyzed in 1997 shooting struggles to pay for care
