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Many new instructors don't stop to think that they will ever be involved in an "incident." Many current instructors believe that if you are a good instructor who is conscientious, experienced and know what you're doing, they'll never be involved in an incident.
You are correct because the way in which most courses are structured and operated "incidents" are often out of the instructors' control.
While an instructor is completely responsible for what happens to his students, it doesn't mean that an incident is always the instructors fault. Things happen. A student lies on their medical questionnaire about asthma or epilepsy and suddenly a checkout dive is a life and death situation.
That's why a real diving medical exam should be required, with the full results going back to the instructor, not just the physician's OK.
Bad things do happen to good instructors.
They do, but they shouldn't.
It might even be a student you certified months ago involved in an incident with a dive master in another country and suddenly you are the one being called for a deposition. It might be something as simple as lending someone a mask.
If you can't teach someone to safely surface without a mask, sorry. but you should find another line of work.
When something bad happens to a good instructor, the public doesn't care that it was a good instructor. The family of the injured or deceased doesn't care how many years of experience you have or how careful you are with your students. The lawyers will comb through your paperwork looking for any possible mistake. Experts will spin storylines of your negligence based on an offhand remark or the position of a fin lying on the bottom.
Yup, you better have all your ducks in a neat little row.
Internet forums will light up to bash you and whatever agency you happened to be teaching for.
That does not require an "incident," just an opinion.
When you have done everything above and beyond the agency standards, when you filled out all the paperwork correctly, when you did the best you could and made the best decisions you could, your certifying agency may be the only source of support you can turn to.
Sure, and it makes you feel real supported when the first thing that they do is look to have their agency severed from the case.
When you as an instructor are under attack from all sides for something that couldn't be prevented and you call your agency, who do you want to answer the phone?
My lawyer, my wife, my friends, in that order.
There are many knowledgeable and experienced instructors on this board who are qualified to create well thought-out curriculums that are comprehensive and geared to safety. But there is more to an agency than that. It is about defending that curriculum when things go horribly bad.
I worked a lot of cases on both sides of the table, I have yet to see a single case is which the curriculum was attacked, it is to messy and too open to interpretation and spin. Gross violations of stated procedures, yes ... curriculum? Never.
In a worst-case scenario, I want to pick up the phone and contact an agency headquarters that has resources, experience and professionalism. A great curriculum is only as good as those who deploy and manage that curriculum. This isn't a question of big agency or small agency. It is a question of how an agency conducts itself.
All agencies conduct themselves the same way, they work like hell to be dropped from the complaint and once that occurs they stand back and let the lawyers that have been hired to handle the case, handle the case.
If an agency has difficulty dealing with someone calling about a C card, what's going happen when they get a serious phone call?
It really doesn't matter, what you need is a good lawyer, not a warm and fuzzy agency wonk whose perfectly happy to throw you to the wolves if that is what is in the best interests of the agency he or she works for. Do not be fooled, if you are involved in an incident, provide your agency and insurance company with no more than you absolutely have to. Once you have a lawyer that you can trust, who is representing you and nobody else, not the agency, not the shop, not the boat, not another instructor, not another diver, just you ... and you have been assured of confidentiality and lawyer/client privilege, then, and only then, should you provide all the excruciating details.
