BY WARREN WOODBERRY JR. and JANE H. FURSE DAILY NEWS 10/9/07 A BROOKLYN college student was presumed drowned yesterday after he fell into the roiling wa¬ters off Breezy Point, Queens, during a fishing expe¬dition with his father and friends. Karl Heinzen, 21, of Park Slope, and five others started fishing off a slippery jetty short¬ly after dawn yesterday, said Karl's father, Jerome Heinzen. They had been fishing about halfway out on the algae-cov¬ered rock, and Karl had caught two striped bass shortly before a wave crashed over the jetty, pushing him into the water about 7:30 a.m. "I went to try and help him, and I got pushed in by a wave Karl Heinzen myself," said his father, who was still in shock. Heinzen said his son — a sophomore at the New School — was "an excellent swimmer and a strong man" and managed to struggle out of his heavy wad¬ers, but the powerful current swept him out toward a party boat, the Dorothy B., as the crew struggled to rescue him. "They almost saved him; they were so close. I can see him reaching for a buoy, but by that time he was probably too tired," said the father. He called it "kind of ironic" that his son worked on the Dorothy B. dur¬ing his last two years in high school. A police helicopter and scuba teams, as well as Fire Department, Coast Guard and U.S. park per¬sonnel, almost immediately began searching for the young man, but the strong current forced the search operation to stop until conditions improved, about 2:30 p.m. As the search continued, the father returned to the scene with his wife and a young woman. The three sat together near the jetty, waiting to hear whether the young man's body had been found. "I'm holding up okay, but my wife is who I have to deal with," said Heinzen. Fishermen who frequent the area said the jetty is a popular spot off the point, which divides the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay, but yesterday's wind and high tide created deadly conditions. "This is a very, very bad place. You have to observe Mother Nature. Most experienced guys know not to go when it's full moon or high tide," said William Si¬mon, 43, of Manhattan, who volunteers as a rescue ranger in the Rockaways. Simon said when he went out there on Saturday, the waves were 12 feet high — and yesterday condi¬tions wouldn't have been much better.

Please do not let this happen to you.

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