The story is full of holes. I don’t think it’s real. First of all, that amount of air in the subcutaneous space would cause serious damage to the skin, probably even sloughing, causing him to have months of treatment for burn-like injury.
Also, air under the skin doesn’t get “burped or farted,” it wasn’t in the GI tract. It can take weeks for sub-q air to disipate.
Subcutaneous air is called crepitus, named for the sound it makes when touched. It sounds like bubble wrap being popped.
Darwin Award honorable mention.
:dubious: It’s called emphysema. Crepitus is the grinding of bones, either at an arthritic joint, or at the site of a break.
This post wins the internet. Best set-up to a pun ever!
Yes. 
Sorry, you’re partly right. But, sub-q emphysema causes crepitus. See the last definition.
Being a critical care nurse, I dealt more with lung and sub-q crepitus than bone.
Well, sure.
If they just yanked the hose out, he’d fly around the room and hurt himself or a nurse!
…
…
ewww
These are two things that are keeping me from buying it as well. Also, could air injected subcutaneously in the buttocks end up filling his abdominal and thoracic cavities? I’m picturing ruptured membranes everywhere. Also, the idea that they let the gas dissipate naturally - in laparoscopic abdominal surgery, they inflate the abdomen so they have room to work and then deflate it afterwards. Seems like a large bore hollow needle could have relieved the pressure .
Plus, how big a tank are we talking about? If “half the contents” inflated him to only “twice his size” then I may be wrong but that doesn’t sound like a very big compressed air tank for a gas station.
It was an air tank on a truck, not for a gas station.
You can separate skin from the underlying tissue and have the skin survive - that’s a longstanding face lift technique. Of course, the skin can also die, and the larger the area of skin you’re talking about the more likely there will be problems.
I suspect some of this is facts mangled by journalists, but it’s not the only freakish workplace accident I’ve heard of.
I suppose it could have been a tank on a truck, sizewise that would make more sense, but the article is not clear either way. All it says is he was working on his tractor trailer at a gas station and fell on a nozzle.
It still doesn’t negate the fact that subcutaneous air isn’t burped or farted out, and that part is purportedly a direct quote from him, not a fact the reporters might mangle. The story as reported is still damned fishy.
This article isn’t clear - it’s been carried by several media outlets and some reports are more detail than others. He was working on his truck, fell, and busted the airhose attachment by landing on it.
Those wacky New Zealanders always coming up with new sports. First Bungee Jumping now Buttocks Inflating.
I dunno. Sounds to me like he’s gonna get all puffed up over his 15 minutes of fame.
Basically this.
I was looking for a serious answer, not a joke, but thanks anyway.
FWIW - The article stated his fat separated from muscle compressing his lungs and heart.
Didn’t James Bond kill a guy this way, once?
I was thinking more like this. 
Well blow me down. That story’s a real gas.