Breaking News: sometimes teachers have depressive flameouts just like every other kind of person.

There's not really anything to take from this article. When this sort of thing happens, the department hands the class off to someone else, the instructor is disciplined in some way, and life goes on. The students won't receive an ideal semester's worth of instruction, but that happens sometimes. The university probably ought to find some way to let students who want to take the class over to do so at no cost, but I have no idea if that's likely. The students who would rather not take the class over shouldn't have to. One class is not going to make or break their education. Meanwhile, they've learned that sometimes spectacular flameouts happen, and they have an interesting story to tell for the rest of their lives.