As Falls police K-9 Officer Mike Bird drove into the 1000 block of South Avenue in the early morning hours of Feb. 7, 2009, behind Traffic Officer Walt Nichols, he saw every cop’s worst nightmare.

As Nichols stepped from his patrol SUV, Bird saw two shotgun blasts take him down.

“As (Nichols) goes to open his (vehicle) door, just as he opens it, I see two muzzle flashes and I hear, I clearly hear, the shots,” Bird told a spellbound Niagara County Court jury on Monday afternoon. “Two big, white flashes of light directed at (Nichols). I saw black glass fall from Officer Nichols’ car to the ground. Then he stumbled right down to the ground.”

With his fellow officer clearly wounded, Bird said he immediately stopped his patrol car, stepped out and drew his gun. Using his hands to imitate the gun and the door of his car, Bird showed the jury how he “steadied’ his weapon and “returned fire” at the gunman who had targeted Nichols.

“I can see where the (gun powder) flashes are coming from,” Bird said. “I can see someone pointing a gun down toward where Officer Nichols had fallen to the ground and was crawling.”

Then, Bird said, the gunman opened fire on him.

“As I began to return fire, I saw the suspect swing his gun in my direction,” Bird told the jurors. “I don’t remember hearing the shotgun blast in my direction. It sounded like gravel or rocks being thrown at my car and bouncing off metal. It was just a bright white flash of light.”

Shotgun pellets ripped into Bird’s car and broke the emergency lights on top of the vehicle, just inches from the officer’s head. As he tried to grab his police radio microphone to warn other officers of the gunfight under way on South Avenue, Bird looked down and saw the radio covered in blood.

Like Nichols, he too had been hit.

Bird’s testimony, as well as that of Nichols, highlighted the fourth day in the trial of accused gunman Adam Hamilton.

Hamilton, 35, 2718 22nd St., is charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, a single charge of attempted second-degree murder and one count of aggravated criminal contempt in the shooting of Nichols, Bird and his estranged girlfriend Stephanie Turk.

Before Bird, Nichols told the jury of six men and six women hearing the case that he went to South Avenue to back up Bird and a Roving Anti-Crime Unit team that had been dispatched there. Nichols said he turned on to South Avenue, with Bird in a car directly behind him and saw a man “jogging across (the street in front of him) carrying what looked like a rifle or shotgun.”

The veteran Traffic Division officer said he then saw the suspect standing on a porch “standing by a person slumped on the porch.”

“As I stopped, I heard and saw two pops from what appeared to be a small caliber weapon,” Nichols said. “As I was starting to get out of my vehicle, I saw the (gunman) then turn forward, step behind a (porch) pillar and fire at me. It sounded like a shotgun blast.”

Nichols, who had one foot on the pavement and one still inside his SUV, was struck between the panels of his bullet-proof vest with the full force of a shotgun shell full of pellets.

“I felt an impact to my left rib cage area and it (knocked the wind out of me),” Nichols said. “I felt pain and weakness.”

Despite being hit, Nichols managed to get the rest of the way out of his vehicle, unholster his gun and begin shooting back at the gunman. Then he was hit again.

“I saw and felt a second shot,” Nichols said. “I felt pain in my left hand, my side and my back. I continued to return fire until the left side of my body felt weak.”

Nichols, who is left handed, said he switched his gun to his right hand, tried to reload his weapon and continue firing back at his attacker. He didn’t realize he was bleeding badly from his wounds and his lungs were collapsing.

As he became weaker, Nichols said he tried to “get cover” behind his police vehicle. Falling to his knees, he said he then crawled to the other side of the street and propped himself up against a parked car.

Nichols didn’t know at that moment that RAC Officers Rick Fleck and Nick Granto, along with Narcotics Division Lt. Kelly Rizzo, had arrived on South Avenue and had also begun to engage in the furious gun battle. While Fleck and Granto fired at the gunman, Rizzo made his way to Bird.

Bird said it appeared that the gunman was still firing at his patrol car, when he and Rizzo spotted Nichols crawling across the street.

“(Nichols) was just pushing himself across the street,” Bird said. “We had to go get Walt, he was in a very vulnerable position.”

Though Bird was bleeding from a pellet wound to his face, he and Rizzo were able to drag Nichols to safety behind another parked car.

“We were looking at him and telling him he was going to be OK,” Bird said as his voice choked with emotion. “There was a lot of blood.”

As other officers and paramedics arrived on the scene, Bird said he saw Fleck and Granto on the porch with the gunman and what appeared to be another wounded person. He said the gunman was Hamilton and the other person was Turk.

After telling Fleck to be sure to “cuff” Hamilton, Bird said Turk spoke, faintly, to him.

“She said, ‘Help me. Help me. He (Hamilton) shot me.’,” Bird recalled.

Nichols was rushed to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where his lung was reinflated. Then he was taken to Erie County Medical Center where he underwent surgery to have pellets removed from his stomach, lungs, around his heart and even from his face.

Hamilton sat at the defense table throughout the officer’s testimony showing no reaction or emotion.

The trial continues later today.