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Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Chief Operations Officer Shane Davidson of Pafford Medical Services helps showcase the new facility. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

Pafford Medical Services celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday after adding air transportation to its fleet of ambulances and building new living quarters for employees. (Sabrina Robertson | The Natchez Democrat)

FERRIDAY, La. — Pafford Medical Services celebrated the addition of emergency air transportation to its ambulance service in Ferriday during a ribbon cutting Thursday with the Concordia Parish Chamber of Commerce and local officials.

Pafford’s ground operation first caught a foothold in Concordia Parish in July 2022, with the office at 6647 U.S. 84 in Ferriday.

On Thursday, just a little over a year later, the parish celebrated a ribbon cutting for the latest expansion, Air One Sierra.

Pafford launched the air operation in April, adding a helicopter for emergency air transportation to its fleet of six ambulances in Concordia Parish, Chief Operations Officer Shane Davidson said.

“We’re one of the largest family-owned ambulance services in the nation,” he said. “We’ve been in business for 56 years and service 13 counties in Mississippi and seven parishes in Louisiana. It’s a great place. We’re strong rural ambulance providers.”

To house and provide the new living quarters of the air service, where employees may work shifts lasting days at a time, Pafford bought and repurposed old warehouses that once belonged to Marcela Beverage, a Budweiser plant. The siding on one building had been cut to fit large roll-up doors for the ambulance bay.

The storage facility adjacent to it, while it may look large and tin on the outside, has been sectioned off inside to build bedrooms, bathrooms and a full kitchen, dining and living room area. Even with outside temperatures in the mid-90s, inside is cool and comfortable. The rear has large storage lockers stocked with medical equipment for emergent air transportation.

“This building was just a metal building, just a shell,” Davidson said.

In the future, Pafford aims to expand into Natchez, he said.

“We’re looking for a property over there for a station to do something like this,” he said. “We will keep shop here but need crew quarters over there for our crew to stay.”

Pafford’s Ferriday operation employs approximately 40 to 45 people, Davidson said.

“We’re excited and we’ve had a ton of support from Concordia Parish and from Adams County,” he said.

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