Sydney - A man who died after swallowing 100 tablets of rat poison caused the evacuation of a hospital ward when his body started emitting a deadly gas, authorities said today.
The unnamed 44-year-old man took aluminum phosphide tablets, which when dissolved give off a fumigant used by farmers to rid grain silos of rodents and weevils. The man was taken by ambulance to hospital after police found him lying unconscious on a roadside embankment.