As far as buddies go, 2 divers in gear, unstable on the slimy rocks there (more of them as the tide goes out) often aren't all that much help to each other anyway. They've just gotta do the rock crawl, or hand off stuff in their hands, maybe take off the rig lower on the rocks than planned until they get things sorted out, whatever. I've seen folks on the rocks - there's pretty much always lots of folks on the rocks - help out before. I know I did this at least once when I went there to dive (and didn't, as it was getting too snotty, and one of our group forgot their weight belt, and everything else was going wrong that day.)
Maybe they were stupid, but I wouldn't automatically assume that. Possibly not as familiar with conditions there as they should have been, or sometimes stuff just happens. Sort of the nature of the exit, if you're walking out, sooner or later you're bound to fall.