Glad to hear he's doing better. A former boss of mine suffered a major heart attack two weeks ago, and was "technically" dead for 15 minutes. Surprisingly, the doctors decided her heart was in good enough condition that she didn't need a pacemaker, even though this was heart attack #3.
My father's heart stopped twice in 1985, about 20 minutes apart; he turned purple in the middle of of our living room. He recovered and died permanently in 2007.
I'm very sorry for you, JJ. That must have been awful.