A Cook County jury has awarded $2.6 million to the family of a 39-year-old man who suffered heart failure five days before he would have received a defibrillator implant. Russell Kotlarz of Algonquin began seeing Dr. Nephtali Kogan of Hoffman Estates in 1999 for treatment of his non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, a weakening of the heart muscles. In December 2006, Kogan recommended Kotlarz receive an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD), a device an expert described as “putting a paramedic into …