PADI Standards require you to report incidents that occur so that they can be appropriately tracked and managed if the need arises. As part of your PADI Membership Agreement, you agree to file a PADI Incident Report Form anytime you witness or are involved in a diving or dive operation-related accident/incident, regardless of whether the incident occurred in or out of the water; is training related, recreational, technical or seemingly insignificant.
While the Incident Report Form is largely focused on collecting information related to scuba diving incidents, it’s important to remember that you are obliged to report incidents that occur during snorkeling, skin diving and freediving activities, as well as any incident that involves divers, dive customers, dive staff or anyone in or around a dive business.
Incident Report Forms should be submitted directly to the Quality Management department at your PADI Regional Headquarters as soon as possible following the incident. This ensures that important information is captured while your recollection is still fresh.
Always use the most current version of the Incident Report Form, which can be found on the PADI Pros’ Site (Training Essentials/Forms and Applications/General) to ensure that all of the required information is recorded. If the incident occurred during a PADI course, don’t forget that you will also need to submit copies of all of the student’s course paperwork and training records with the Incident Report Form.
If more than one person from the same facility is involved in, or witnesses, the incident, it is acceptable to have one person complete the Incident Report Form and then either have each individual sign the summary, or complete a cover letter, signed by all, stating that they agree with all the details contained in the report. Email statements to this effect from all PADI Members involved, originating from email addresses on file with your Regional Headquarters, are also acceptable.
If you have any questions regarding the incident reporting requirements, contact the Quality Management department at your PADI Regional Headquarters for clarification.
