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I read it here and I couldn't believe it.

So can a person still fart after dying ?

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    For those wanting to chase this one up, the claim from that infographic comes from two of the references. The authors are Michy Lynn & Brenna Lorenz, respectively. Neither seem to be an authoritative source on this area (e.g. pathologist, proctologist). The 2nd last link is broken it seems.
    – user2466
    Jun 7, 2011 at 10:39
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    Perhaps a full answer later, but anecdotally I have seen this quite a few times. Gasses will continue to escape from a body after death and as it decomposes. Sometimes this gas will take the path of least resistance, escaping from either end of the digestive tract, sounding like a burp or fart, however as decomp continues gas buildup often increases and the structures keeping it inside the body decay needless to say, this can cause some extremely messy situations I won't describe here, but google exploding casket syndrome.
    – Monkey Tuesday
    Jun 7, 2011 at 19:29
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    @Monkey So I assume that either you work a lot with dead people or you’re just an amateur mass murderer?
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Jun 7, 2011 at 20:54
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    @Konrad, Why amateur?
    – picakhu
    Jun 7, 2011 at 21:14
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    @konrad Sadly I failed my chainsaw decapitation exam and they wouldn't let me into the serial killers union, so I had to go into medicine.
    – Monkey Tuesday
    Jun 7, 2011 at 21:18

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The answer is yes, it can happen after death, but only SHORTLY after death.

This is due to the contracting and expanding of the related muscles, which do not necessarily "shut down" immediately after death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence

Two or three hours after death, rigor mortis sets in. This is a chemical stiffening of the muscles that prevents the kind of activity described above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigor_mortis

So the "window" doesn't last very long.

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    The first reference to Wikipedia does not seem to contain anything to support your claim. If you believe it does, perhaps you could pull some quotes from it to show that that is the case. (NB: Wikipedia isn't a great primary reference in the first place, except to provide general background information.)
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Sep 19, 2011 at 3:16

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