'Blood And Bodies Everywhere' In Aurora Attack

Some victims of the Colorado cinema shooting were "missing parts of their head" after the attack, a court has heard.

Aurora Fire Department Lieutenant Bernd Hoefler told the trial of James Holmes how he came across a scene of "blood and bodies everywhere".

"Some were trampled. Some had missing parts of their head," he said.

"It was like a horror film."

Police officer Annette Brook told jurors: "It was dim, the movie was still playing, the alarm was going off.

"I began to notice the bodies, the live victims, the blood."

A survivor described seeing the gunman prowling the movie theatre searching for more victims.

Joshua Nowlan went to the midnight screening of Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises on 20 July 2012 with two friends who had just returned from their honeymoon.

The father of two and former member of the military said that after the gunfire rang out about 20 minutes into the film he looked down and saw a hole in his leg.

"It felt as if someone was taking a rusted railroad nail and jamming it into my leg," he told the court on Wednesday.

Mr Nowlan, who shielded his friends from the bullets, was shot twice and has had multiple operations.

He said his friend tried to push the muscle and tissue "back into my leg".

Mr Nowlan recalled how from between the seats he saw the gunman.

Using the cane he now needs to walk to show jurors what happened next, he said: "I can see him with the gun holding up to his chest and he was pointing down to the ground looking for other people."

When the lights came on in the cinema, Mr Nowlan told his friend to grab his wife and flee.

He spent another half hour inside, crawling to help a "barely alive" man who wasn't moving.

Holmes, 27, is accused of killing 12 people and injuring 70 others as the film was shown.

The former neuroscience graduate student has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and an explosives offence.

Police sergeant Gerald Jonsgaard told the court that he saw Holmes lying on the ground in the car park as he was arrested and stripped of a helmet and body armour he was said to have been wearing.

Sgt Jonsgaard also described how mobile phones left in the cinema kept ringing.

"All the cellphones that were left, were lying on the ground, were ringing," he told the court. "That kept going on all night long."

Sgt Jonsgaard said he asked an officer to carry out the youngest victim, six-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who died.

Holmes' lawyers did not question Sgt Jonsgaard or any of the 10 witnesses who testified on Tuesday.

:: Watch full live coverage of the trial on skynews.com starting on Thursday at 9.40am (3.40pm UK Time).