A Harlingen barber is working to get back on his feet after having open-heart surgery — a procedure that forced him to close up shop.

A closed sign still hangs in the window of the City Barbershop in Harlingen after it was put up earlier this month.

“If I hadn't had the surgery, I wouldn't be here to tell the story,” Roel Zoerner said.

Zoerner owns the barber shop, and had quadruple bypass surgery on Aug. 15. The surgery came two and a half weeks after a cardiologist told him he had a blockage in his arteries.

“He said, ‘you need to get to the emergency room right now,’” Zoerner recalled. “So my wife drove me from my cardiologist straight to Valley Baptist, and that's where it started."

The 58-year-old man said he was feeling tightness in his chest and shortness of breath prior to his

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