Houston barber shares COVID-19 recovery story to help others

A well-known Houston barber is using his own COVID-19 scare to educate everyone about the coronavirus and getting the vaccines.

He says hundreds reached out when he was fighting for his life in the hospital, including Houston Texans players.

Hundreds have taken a seat in Julian Diaz’s chair. He’s heard hundreds of stories, and now, he wants everyone to hear his.

“Every time you get up, you’re gasping for air,” said Diaz, owner of Empire Barbershop. “I was feeling like, am I going to freaking make it? I can’t even imagine if you’re on a ventilator.”

“A lot of people were hitting me up, asking where I was at and about haircuts, so I was like let me make a post,” he said. “DMs just kept flooding in. It was hard for me to even be on the phone in the hospital. It was just tough.

Diaz said family, clients and some Texans players reached out.

“One of my clients was like when I saw you in the hospital, me and my whole family went and got the vaccine,” Diaz said. “I had a lot of people tell me to share my story, because there’s a lot of people that don’t take this serious. I was kind of one of those people at first.”

“You know I know a lot of people are still kind of on the fence about it, stuff like that,” Diaz said. “For me personally, I was one of those people before this whole situation, but now going through what I just went through, I’m definitely going to get it.”

Diaz said he has a “new beginning, a new purpose, a new life.”

“So grateful that I was out and that I was able to be out again and be alive, you know. It’s crazy,” Diaz said.