It’s a “miracle” that troubled pop star Billy Joel survived a terrifying brush with death in a car on notorious “Dead Man’s Curve” on Long Island, residents said yesterday.
Joel’s shaken ex-wife, supermodel Christie Brinkley, was spotted snapping photos of the crushed car just hours after the Sag Harbor accident, which left the singer – who sources said was sober at the time – with facial cuts.
Joel, 53, was alone, heading south in his Mercedes-Benz S600 about a mile and a half from downtown Sag Harbor, when the vehicle spun out of control at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday as it rounded an extremely dangerous bend, cops and residents said.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive,” said Winthrop Barrett, 45, who was in his home on Route 114 when he “heard the thump outside.”
“He only sideswiped a tree. If he hit it head-on, he’d be dead,” Barrett said.
“I came out and saw the car sitting in the middle of the road. It’s a miracle someone didn’t hit him,” said Barrett, who didn’t recognize Joel behind the wheel of the wrecked car. “He was either in shock or something.”
Joel wound up slamming into a 15-foot tree bearing a sign “Trail’s End.”
“That tree is hit so many times,” Barrett said. “Coming off this hill, it’s a very dangerous curve. They call it ‘Dead Man’s Curve.’
“Me and my mother put the sign ‘Trail’s End’ in the tree because [this] was going to be our last home, but it’s taken on a whole new meaning now.”
One source involved in the case told The Post that a blood test showed that Joel had not been drinking at the time of the crash.
“I didn’t smell any alcohol,” added the source, who arrived at the scene shortly afterward.
Joel, who last year underwent treatment at a Connecticut substance-abuse rehab facility, “was coherent,” although “he was talking a mile a minute” while stuck in the car, the source said.
Another source said that because there was no smell of alcohol on either Joel or in the car, police did not give him a Breathalyzer test at the scene.
Joel’s blood was drawn later at University Hospital at Stony Brook, and a test showed he was not drunk, one source said.
Joel, who was wearing his seat belt, didn’t remember what led up to the crash, a source said.
It took Sag Harbor firefighters about 15 to 20 minutes to get Joel, who lives in nearby East Hampton, out of the car.
Joel was taken by ambulance to nearby East Hampton Airport, where he was flown by helicopter to the hospital. He was released at about 9 a.m. yesterday, and was not charged.
Around noon yesterday, Brinkley went to the Sag Harbor firehouse, where his car was taken after the crash, to photograph the wreckage. She and Joel have a 16-year-old daughter, Alexa.
Joel was involved in a major accident in 1982, when his motorcycle hit a car in Huntington, L.I.