Dr. Martin often used fart jokes to put his patients at ease

EUGENE, OR—Dr. Stanley Martin, who played a vital role in the passing of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, has died of a heart attack at the age of 67. The Death With Dignity Act allows a patient dying of a terminal illness to self-administer a drug prescribed by his physician to end his life on his own terms instead of going through medical procedures that do little more than prolong suffering.

Dr. Martin was discovered by his wife Tanya and numerous friends and acquaintances at a dinner party the couple was hosting at his home. According to his wife, Dr. Martin excused himself from the party, saying he needed to “shake loose a gnarly deuce.”

“He was always saying fun things about his bowel movements,” Tanya says, “We didn’t have any reason to believe this time would be any different.”

His wife says he had recently been experiencing trouble with his bowel movements, once comparing a particularly painful instance with being fornicated by Shaquille O’Neal, a retired professional basketball player.

“He joked around about the ‘Shaq attack’,” she recalls, “we had a good laugh at that one.”

Partygoers were alarmed at loud grunts emanating from the bathroom of the Martins’ home, and when Dr. Martin failed to emerge after more than an hour, his wife grew concerned and called 911. Emergency officials, surrounded by worried party guests and several curious neighbors, were able to break through the bathroom door, only to find Dr. Martin unresponsive, lying face down on the bathroom floor with his pants still around his ankles.

“The smell was ghastly,” recalls one traumatized guest, “and his face was contorted with a look of pain while he was lying in a puddle of drool. His tongue was even hanging out, like a dog who had just been hit by a milk truck.”

Shocked partygoers looked on as the EMTs attempted to revive the doctor, even after his unresponsive body evacuated its bowels all over the floor in front of them. Their efforts proved in vain, however, as the good doctor succumbed to an apparent heart attack.

“I can’t get the image, or the smell, out of my head,” says another party guest, “It’s a shame he’ll be remembered this way.”