The two divers working alongside Russell Robinson at the time of the tragedy were physically and emotionally shattered after the hour-long attempted rescue.
Paul Stone and Simon Bradley fought frantically to haul Mr Robinson to safety but were hindered by a number of obstacles.
Mr Stone broke down in the witness box as he watched footage of himself being hauled back up in the diving bell moments after he had managed to seal the door tight shut.
Having abandoned attempts to revive the young man using CPR Mr Stone can be seen on the footage taking a minute away from the cameras watching over the incident.
He then picks up a towel and places it over his head before crying helplessly into it.
As the footage was shown during the inquiry yesterday, Mr Stone welled up and apologised, saying it was just something he needed to do.
Mr Bradley told the court about the strain he had been under that night.
He said: “I did not have any concept of time. About half way through the attempted rescue we started to experience muscle cramps.
“When you go into saturation the fluids move away from your joints and other vital parts of your body. It takes about 12 hours for that fluid to return to where its supposed to be.
“If you go out and work initially it’s normal to get cramps but under normal circumstances you would just stop what you were doing. We were attempting to save Russell’s life and waiting for cramp to alleviate just wasn’t an option.”
Mr Bradley said things changed rapidly after they managed to haul Mr Robinson into the bell.
He said: “Although I was conscious and knew what was going on around me my brain was telling me to do something and my body wasn’t responding.
I kept telling myself I should be carrying out CPR, that was what I was supposed to be doing but I just physically couldn’t my body just wouldn’t work.”
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