There are moments in life when every minute is precious, and every decision made can have lasting consequences.

Hillsdale resident Rob Beiner and his wife Grace experienced a moment like this last June, as Rob was playing an intramural basketball game at the YJCC in the Township of Washington .

A few minutes after halftime, Rob, a healthy 39-year-old with no prior history of heart disease, collapsed on the gym floor, unconscious, and fell into a seizure.

“I was diving for a loose ball and started to get up on one knee. At that point I just collapsed,” Rob said. “My heart just stopped at that moment.”

Luckily for Rob he was playing alongside Jason Sperling, a cardiothoracic surgeon. Sperling recognized something in Rob’s breathing, and began immediately performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). When the police arrived, they used an automatic external defibrillator (AED) to shock his heart back into a normal rhythm.

“He was waiting for me to wake up,” Rob explained. “But then he heard agonal breathing, which basically means your dying breaths, like a gasp, and he started doing CPR.”

While the experience has caused the Beiners to count their blessings, it has also shaken the couple, as they worry whether the arrhythmia could be passed down to their young sons, Michael James (M.J.), who is 5-years-old and Evan, who is 3.

After undergoing a battery of tests, Rob was diagnosed with idiopathic ventricular fibrillation, which essentially means doctors do not know what caused the near-fatal heart arrhythmia. He now has an internal cardioverter defibrillator implanted underneath his skin, right below the clavicle, with a wire running from the device into an artery in his heart.

If his heart enters ventricular fibrillation, the device will shock it into a normal rhythm and pace the beats if necessary. The device also records every beat of Rob’s heart and sends the information to a doctor over phone wires.

When Rob was in the hospital, doctors did a genetic test for Long QT, the most common genetic component of arrhythmia that can be passed down to your children and he was found not to have it. But, he said, while the odds are “very low that anything will be passed down to them, we just don’t know.”

The fear that M.J. and Evan are at risk for heart problems, and the realization that ready access to defibrillators could mean the difference between life and death, has caused the couple to campaign for the greater availability of the devices.

They are planning on purchasing one for their home and have been in contact with Hillsdale Superintendent Anthony DeNorchia about the availability of AEDs in the schools. Currently, only the Pascack Valley High School is equipped with defibrillators, but DeNorchia is investigating the purchase of the devices for the town’s elementary and middle schools by the next school year.

“Every time the phone rings and it says Hillsdale Board of Ed., my heart sinks,” said Grace. “They just don’t know what could happen to the boys.”

“As a teacher, I never understood how come it wasn’t mandatory that we weren’t trained in CPR. I drop my child off at nine in the morning and I don’t pick him up until 3:10 and I’m not there if something happens.”

The recent deaths of two teenage athletes Sean Fisher, 13, and Douglas Morales, 17, have highlighted the need for better access to defibrillators and knowledge of CPR, particularly in schools and at recreation events. The number and location of available AEDs varies from town to town, although every municipality has them in police vehicles and many local municipalities have begun investigating purchasing more of the devices.

The American Heart Association recommends having one located everywhere there is a fire extinguisher.

According to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association, the average survival rate when someone collapses from sudden cardiac arrest is six percent. However, as many as 30 to 50 percent could survive if CPR and AED were available within the first five minutes of collapse. The devises are easy to use, and relatively inexpensive.

“An 8-year-old can follow the directions,” Rob said. “I think a lot of people don’t realize this, but it doesn’t shock if you don’t have an arrhythmia and you can’t hurt anyone with it.”

Towns and schools interested in obtaining AEDs are beginning to negotiate thorny issues such as liability, storage, and proper training, but talking to Rob Beiner, those seem like minor concerns compared to the possible loss of a husband and a father.

The tendency is for people to think sudden cardiac arrest and other serious health problems could never happen to them, but if it can happen to Rob, it can probably happen to anyone. “My arteries were clear, I didn’t have high cholesterol, didn’t have hypertension, and I was in shape. I didn’t have any problems at all.”

M.J. and Evan are too young to understand exactly what happened to their father, and for now are just happy to have him back home, patched up and healthy.

When Rob was in the hospital Grace tried to explain what happened in a way her young children could understand. “I said ‘good news! They figured out what was wrong with daddy, and it was his heart, but they put a computer in his chest that’s gonna take care of his heart at all times, and daddy’s gonna be OK.’

“So every once in a while M.J. just walks over and asks ‘is everything OK in there?’”

When Grace talks about what could have happened that day in June, her eyes well up with tears.

“I just don’t think my oldest son would’ve come back from losing his father. He would’ve been so devastated. Rob is just an amazing father. He’s too good to go anywhere.”

Megan Burrow's e-mail address is burrow@northjersey.com.