Car sliced in half at ‘dead man’s curve’

Four teenagers from Queens died in a car crash so brutal that the vehicle was sliced in two. The driver, 17-year-old Joseph Beer, survived the crash with injuries and was taken to the hospital, the Associated Press reported. 

At about 3:40 a.m. Monday morning, Beer was driving a 2012 Subaru Impreza on the Southern State Parkway in Long Island when he lost control of his car at a tough curve, the Wall Street Journal reported. The car wrapped around a tree and tossed the four teenage victims out "like rag dolls," the New York Daily News reported. The curve is so sharp and dangerous for drivers that locals have even nick-named it "dead man's curve."

‘‘I've lived here for 10 years and there has been an accident almost in that exact spot every year, but never as one as horrific as this,’’ a local told the AP. 

More from GlobalPost: When the BRICs Crumble 

State Police say that Beer shouldn't even have been driving. Beer only had a learner's permit, which legally barred him from driving between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. without an instructor who was over 21 years old, NBC New York reported. Prosecutors have not yet told NBC whether they will press charges against him.

"We found a car over here, and it was literally just a tin can at that point," a witness told told ABC News. "The radio was still playing, that was the creepy part about it."

On Monday friends and family of the victims gathered at the crash site to mourn, NBC reported.