Mr Wilson collapsed a couple of miles from the finishing line

Reuben Wilson, 28, a company director from Leeds, was the youngest of four competitors to die during the Tyneside race in September 2005.

A St John Ambulance volunteer who tried to help, told the hearing he struggled to find oxygen for Mr Wilson.

The inquests at Gateshead Civic Centre are expected to last five days.

Race organisers Nova International are also due to give evidence.

Deputy head teacher Phil Lewis, 52, from Chester-le-Street, County Durham, 43-year-old civil engineer David Mahaffey, from York, and businessman Kieran Patching, 34, from Walderslade, near Chatham in Kent, also died.

Mr Wilson was just a couple of miles from the finishing line of the famous road race when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed.

I looked in the First Aid point where the oxygen would have been stored and there wasn't any Dave Willcock, St John Ambulance volunteer

Dave Willcock, a St John Ambulance volunteer, told the inquest that he was the first medic to help Mr Wilson.

Mr Willcock, from Wearside, assessed the 28-year-old and felt he needed back-up from senior colleagues.

By this time a dental nurse had arrived on the scene, Mr Willcock told the inquest.

He said: "I had been looking after Reuben for a short while and realised I could do with some oxygen and asked the nurse to attend to Reuben while I headed across to the first aid point.

Oxygen tank

"I looked in the First Aid point where the oxygen would have been stored and there wasn't any, so I went back to where Reuben was."

The inquest heard that by the time Mr Willcock got back, Michael McMinley - also a St John Ambulance volunteer and a qualified nurse - had arrived with an oxygen tank and defibrillator.

Mr McMinley said he, local GP Russell Curtis, a paediatric specialist and a dental nurse all struggled to resuscitate the runner.

An ambulance arrived 45 minutes after Mr Wilson collapsed and took him to South Tyneside General Hospital.