Well, each year, thousands of seemingly healthy young people in the U.S. die from an unexpected cause, sudden cardiac arrest.

A new law signed by President Biden this week known as the Hearts Act, is aimed at reducing that number and saving lives.

It will set aside federal money to pay for defibrillators and CPR training in schools and child care centers.

As Ted Goldberg reports, the legislation was inspired by young New Jersey residents who died from sudden cardiac arrest, including Kittim Sherrod of Edison, who collapsed and died at just 17 during track practice from an undiagnosed heart condition.

We have an answer.

We have hope.

We can save the children.

This is amazing.

Razeenah Walker hopes the Hearts Act can save people suffering from sudden cardiac arrest, something that led to the death of her 17 year old grandson, Kittim Sherrod.

It's been 15 long, long years, which even though was long years, it feels like yesterday.

This mural at Edison High honors the multi sports star who appeared to be a perfectly healthy young man.

That's my baby.

My, my.

Everything, my love.

What happens?

We fed him all the good food we could.

We watched him, you know, play football and try to make sure he had the right things and all of the, you know, exams and whatever the protocols were, he had did all of those things.

How could this happen?

Unbeknownst to him or his family, Sherrard had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an undiagnosed heart condition, and went into cardiac arrest during track practice.

Cutting was the strongest one in the family.

He was a football player.

He was strong and he was looking to go to the NFL.

The Hearts Act had stalled in Congress when introduced in years past.

This time he got some help across the finish line, thanks to the very league Sharon dreamed about playing for.

I've worked very hard over the years to get this passed in the House.

The but the reason I mean I would say the only reason but a major reason why I passed the Senate was because he pushed for it.

He is Damar Hamlin, the NFL player who collapsed after an otherwise harmless looking tackle two seasons ago.

EMT saved his life thanks to their training and a readily available defibrillator.

The incident that highlighted what happened to him made him push for it, and he played a major role in influencing the Senate.

There's nothing I can do to bring my son back here, but I can definitely do everything in my power to try to protect other children.

Joe and Taylor, Babbitt's son is John, who died from the same heart condition as Gerard during a basketball game when he was 16 years old.

Joanne watched the Damar Hamlin game live and went through mixed emotions after his recovery sparked national conversations about heart health.

They were doing everything that they could to save his life and they were doing it textbook.

So that made me so excited because I knew I go, He's going to be okay.

The other emotion, though, was why does it take this national event on TV to make people aware that as a society we need to make sure that people are prepared to respond to a sudden cardiac arrest.

Then I get the other emotion again, like, you know what?

I'll take it.

If it moves us forward as a society that makes people take CPR classes, if it makes people feel more comfortable using an aid, then let's go with it.

The Hearts Act establishes a national grant program for schools to have defibrillators on site and a grant program for training for sudden cardiac arrest or CPR.

Walker hopes it helps spread awareness.

I went to sleep, eating, crying, waking up with that word hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, something that no one not many people know about.

Part of the problem is that this is a sort of a hidden disorder, if you will.

In other words, you know, people hopefully this changes now because until now I think a lot of people just didn't realize that this was happening.

For Walker, the passage of the law marks a significant milestone in her years of advocacy since her grandson's death.

She's frequently spoken about her conditions and her hope that children's physicals will start including echocardiograms.

I am going to have to make sure that there will be no other family that will go through this experience and feel this type of pain.

I'm going to be what I'm going to get out into whatever I need to do.

This federal legislation is similar to New Jersey's Janet's law passed in 2012 mandating that schools have defibrillators on site.

Congressman Frank Pallone says the big help for New Jersey will be the federal funds made available, hopefully to help save the lives of people suffering from sudden cardiac arrest.

In Edison, I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.