James Talarico has revealed that a grueling campaign stunt landed him in a life-threatening medical crisis and an incurable diagnosis.
The Texas state senator, 35, told a CNN & Jubilee town hall audience that his decision to walk the full length of his legislative district during his first House run in 2018 triggered a diabetic emergency that left him unconscious for 36 hours. Talarico, who now represents the Austin area in the Texas Senate, said he had considered himself perfectly healthy before the episode.
“I was perfectly healthy and I decided to do something a little unusual,” he recalled at the town hall. “I decided to walk the entire length of my legislative district … It was 25 miles, I did the whole thing on foot all in one day, all in the Texas heat, and I helped three town halls along that walk.”
Talarico noted that he was an experienced hiker who tackled Big Bend National Park annually, so he felt confident about the flat terrain. The physical demands of the walk, however, proved far more dangerous than anticipated.
“But halfway through the walk I started to feel fatigued and nauseous. [I] actually threw up a couple times along the walk,” he shared. “Somehow I finished it. I went home. I figured I was dehydrated and I just needed a good night’s sleep.”
That sleep stretched into a day and a half of unconsciousness before his family rushed him to an emergency room in Williamson County. Medical staff ran blood tests and found his blood sugar had spiked to 900 mg/dL after fasting — normal levels sit below 100 mg/dL. The reading pointed to diabetic ketoacidosis, a rapid-onset condition that can plunge patients into coma or death without immediate insulin intervention.
“I was in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis, which leads to coma and death without insulin,” Talarico explained. “I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on the spot.”
Type 1 diabetes differs sharply from the more common type 2 form that tends to emerge in adulthood with lifestyle links. The autoimmune variety typically strikes in childhood, stems from genetic and environmental triggers, and leaves the body unable to produce sufficient insulin. Sufferers face elevated risk of diabetic ketoacidosis, which develops when cells starved of glucose begin burning fat and flooding the bloodstream with acidic ketones. The resulting blood acidity triggers vomiting, abdominal pain, excessive thirst, frequent urination and cool skin — symptoms that can escalate within hours to collapsing blood pressure, coma and death. Standard hospital treatment involves intravenous fluids for dehydration alongside insulin therapy to force blood sugar downward.
Talarico has since managed the chronic condition through blood sugar monitoring, medication, insulin, diet and exercise. He emphasized his gratitude for the medical team that intervened.
“I was lucky to be alive. The nurses and the doctors in Williamson County saved my life,” he said at the town hall.
Talarico won his Texas Senate seat in 2024 after serving in the state House beginning in 2018, the same year as the fateful campaign walk.