JEFFERSON TWP — The mother of a severely disabled woman said her daughter’s recent fall from the wheelchair lift on a van is the latest of three incidents involving the transportation service — and the last straw.

Beverly Carr said her 22-year-old daughter, Amber McCreary, who has a brain malformation called lissencephaly and scoliosis, a curved spine, was strapped in her wheelchair on the lift of a Butler Area Rural Transit van when she and the wheelchair fell off the elevated lift on the street in front of their home Tuesday morning.

McCreary, who can’t walk or speak, suffered cuts on her face, inside her mouth and on the right side of her body from the 4-foot fall, Carr said.

She said the incident was the third involving BART taking Amber to the adult day program at nearby Austin’s Place since last fall, and will be the last one.

“Obviously she’s not going to be riding BART ever again. That was the final straw for me,” Carr said.

BART officials did not return a call Thursday seeking comment.

Carr said Butler EMS will take Amber to Austin’s Place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday and she will drive her daughter on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The latest incident began at 7 a.m. Tuesday, when a BART van with a young female driver arrived at Carr’s home on Saxonburg Road to pick up Amber.

Carr said her husband, Stephen, took Amber to the van and then got in his car to go to work as the van driver put Amber on the lift.

“He heard screaming. He ran back to the front of the house and found Amber on the ground. She had blood all over her face and all over her side,” Carr said.

She said Amber fell off the lift as it was lifting her.

“Amber was strapped on the wheelchair, which was completely on its side on the ground. The lift was the entire way up,” she said.

Stephen removed the strap, which was wrapped around Amber’s neck and chest, and placed her on the ground, she said.

The driver, who wouldn’t identify herself, called BART and the Carrs called 911, she said.

Stephen kept Amber still until an ambulance arrived, out of concern that the fall might have moved the steel rods screwed into her spine to keep it straight. Fortunately the rods didn’t move, Carr said.

Before the ambulance arrived, a man and a woman from BART showed up, she said.

She asked the man who he was and he refused to identify himself, Carr said, but he took photographs of the scene.

The pair remained at the scene after the ambulance arrived and took Amber to a hospital.

“I never heard another word from BART,” Carr said.

She said she contacted her auto insurance company about paying the medical and ambulance bills because Amber’s health insurance won’t cover them. She said she might consider contacting a lawyer if BART doesn’t pay to fix the wheelchair.

Carr said she isn’t looking to profit from the accident.

“I just want BART to be fair. I definitely hope they use this as a learning lesson and provide better safety instruction from this day forward. Each driver puts her on the bus differently,” Carr said.

Amber has a follow-up appointment at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh next week.

One of the previous incidents with BART occurred shortly before Christmas last year, when the van taking Amber to Austin’s Place crashed into a ditch. Carr said she learned about the accident from a posting on the Butler Eagle’s Facebook page and not from BART.

“My daughter was rescued by the Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Department. They didn’t contact me. I read it on the Eagle’s Facebook page. They didn’t tell Austin’s Place either,” she said.

Last September, a BART driver who took Amber to Austin’s Place arrived there at 7:30 a.m., a half-hour before the center opens, and left her there, she said.

“The nurses were not there yet. It opens at 8 o’clock. Someone from Austin’s contacted BART. We were all shaken up. No handicapped individual should be left on the side of the road,” Carr said.

Amber wasn’t expected to live beyond childhood, but she has survived struggles with the help of her family.

“Amber shouldn’t have lived past 8. She’s 22, We take very good care of her. She is very dear to us. Her life is so fragile. She has been hospitalized 62 times in her life,” Carr said.

The Carrs have four other children.