LOCKPORT — Two Niagara Falls police officers testified in Niagara County Court on Monday about how it felt to be shot, allegedly by Adam J. Hamilton.

Hamilton, 35, of Niagara Falls, is on trial on three counts of attempted murder in the Feb. 7, 2009, shootings of Officers Walter R. Nichols Jr. and Michael Bird, and Hamilton’s ex-girlfriend, Stephanie C. Turk.

Nichols and Bird were wounded by shotgun blasts allegedly fired by Hamilton from the porch of a South Avenue home as he stood over the fallen Turk, who already had been shot four times in the 1 a. m. incident.

Nichols was the first officer on the scene, with Bird a short distance behind him.

“As I was starting to exit my vehicle, I saw the person [on the porch] turn toward me, move behind a pillar, and he shot me,” Nichols said. “I felt an impact to my left rib cage area. It took the wind out of me. I felt a little bit of weakness, a little bit of pain.”

He drew his handgun and returned fire but was hit by a second blast. Pellets struck him in the hand, shoulder, side and leg. Nichols was wearing a bulletproof vest, but the shots struck him between the front and back panels; there was no side protection, he said.

Bird said he saw the shots as he was driving up. He testified, “As [Nichols] goes to open his door, just as he’s getting out, I see two muzzle flashes and I hear, I clearly hear, the shot. It was two big white flashes of light directed at Officer Nichols.”

Bird said he got out of his car and fired back at the suspect, who turned his shotgun toward him and fired. “It sounded like gravel or rocks being thrown at my car and bouncing off metal,” Bird said.

When he reached for the portable radio strapped to his shoulder, he found it was covered with blood. “I assumed it was coming from me,” Bird said. A pellet had struck him in the left cheek.

“I continued to return fire until the left side of my body felt weak,” Nichols said. A lefthander, he switched the gun to his right hand in order to reload.

“I was feeling really weak, so I decided to seek cover behind my truck,” he said, referring to his Traffic Division sport utility vehicle. He then crawled across the street and propped himself up against a parked car.

“Walt . . . was in bad shape,” Bird said. He said he and Lt. Kelly Rizzo, one of three other officers who had just arrived, dragged Nichols to safety.

Meanwhile, Officer Richard Fleck fired at Hamilton, wounding him in the knee and putting him out of action.

Nichols said he didn’t hear any of that gunfire. “I was concentrating on the shotgun blast and trying to breathe,” he said.

Bird ran onto the porch and saw his colleagues handcuff Hamilton. He saw Turk lying there. “She said very faintly, ‘Help me. Help me. He shot me,’ ” Bird testified.

Although wounded, Bird walked to the corner of South Avenue and 11th Street to greet the arriving ambulances and direct them to the scene to assist Nichols, Turk and Hamilton. Unlike the others, he was not admitted to a hospital that night, but he was off work for three months.

Bird said the pellet is still in his left upper jaw and it hurts when he chews. He said he may have surgery to remove it later.

Nichols said his lungs were reinflated through an incision in his side at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center before he was rushed to Erie County Medical Center for lifesaving surgery.

“I have some [shotgun] pellets in my heart, some around the outside of my heart. There’s even a couple in my face,” Nichols said. “It appears I have permanent damage in my left hand. My lungs are still not back to what they were.”

The trial continues today, with Fleck expected to testify.