Leroy ran a small horse ranch from his home on the edge of town. His horses were housed in a barn with a spacious tack room, where he stored his feed, medications, tack and pesticides. One day he brought home a bucket of rat & mouse bait. He used only five of the baits that day, leaving the bucket mostly full. He left the bucket in the tack room and closed the simple latch that kept his horses out of the room.
The next morning he went into the barn and found two of his horses showing signs of colic and abdominal pain. They were also panting and struggling to stand. Leroy quickly noticed that the door to the tack room was wide open. Several bottles of medicine were scattered and crushed around the tack room floor. Then he noticed that he had left off the lid to the bucket of rat & mouse bait.
Leroy called his veterinarian. With the veterinarian on her way, he dialed the emergency number listed on the rat & mouse bait, reaching the NPIC. He needed to know if the bait made the horses sick.