Sgt. Michael Collins, now 47, says he is blessed to have lived through that day.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Mike Collins is the cop who lived.

He was shot in 2004, along with three other Birmingham police officers making a routine drug arrest at a house in Ensley. He survived the SKS. The others did not.

Tuesday will mark the 10-year anniversary of the bloodiest day in Birmingham Police Department history. Collins made it out alive, but soon learned survival is not really living.

He was haunted by sleepless nights, racked with guilt and moved into a job shuffling papers. If you had asked anybody in the department what would become of Collins after Carlos "Curly" Owen, Harley Chisolm III and Charles Robert Bennett died, they would have shaken their heads.

Collins relived the events in his mind, day and night, asking what he could have done differently. "I thought about it every minute," he said. "It played over and over in my head probably for three years."

He was medicated by doctors and kept off the streets, away from the job he still loved. "I was getting more depressed because I wasn't getting to see the good side to policing: Catching the bad guy, helping somebody," he said. "It was just all paperwork and drudge. Helping somebody makes me feel good."

He thought about leaving the job. That was then. This is now. And this is not a story about Collins' scars, but one about his healing. And it's a remembrance for those who died that day.

"This tragic incident absolutely shocked the conscience of Birmingham,'' said Birmingham police Chief A.C. Roper, who at that time was the investigative bureau commander at the Hoover Police Department.

"A couple of days later, I drove by the house just to look and reflect. The fact that three dedicated public servants lost their lives was just sad for the department and the community,'' Roper said. "Mike was very fortunate there wasn't a fourth officer down that day."

When things were darkest, Collins knew the one steady thing in his life was his job.

And he stuck with it. And one day it sunk in, after talking with doctors and specialists and police brass who tried to help him find his way back: "There's really nothing I could have done but get shot."

Things then changed. "He's done very well in bouncing back,'' Roper said, "and it was an honor to promote him to sergeant."

Collins in 2009 went back to crime-fighting on the streets. "I made it back when a lot of people never thought I would. I wasn't sure I would."

'I'm still here'

The week following the shooting was a blur with three funerals in a little more than 24 hours.

Nearly 700 police officers from throughout the state, the Southeast and as far away as New York and Washington, D.C., came to pay their respects.

The services included 21-gun salutes, the mournful strain of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" and the release of doves to signify a spirit returning home. The governor and other dignitaries spoke at a memorial service.

"Although 10 years have passed, it seems like it was just yesterday,'' said former Birmingham police Chief Annetta Nunn, who led the department during those trying times.

"Each time I pass that apartment I think about and visualize the officers murdered there, and wonder how their families are doing. I continue to pray for them."

Chisholm, 40, known as "RoboCop," was remembered as a decorated ex-Marine who was tough on criminals and devoted to public service.

He knew, his supervisors said, when to police from the heart and when to police by the book. He was, they said, a hard-charger with a heart as big as a mountain.

Bennett, 33, was likened to a knight – loyal, courageous, courteous and generous. At his funeral, he was described as a "giant of a man" and a "hero." He left behind a wife and a 4-year-old daughter.

Owen, 58, a highly-decorated, 27-year veteran of the department and a former president of the Fraternal Order of Police, was well-known in the Ensley area he patrolled for years.

He was affectionately known for his once-permed hair and admired for his uncanny ability to catch bad guys. He was called a "soldier of the city" and "a rare breed." He was a husband, father and grandfather who was set to soon retire.

''I'm standing there at their husbands' funerals and I'm still here, with just a scratch,'' Collins said. ''They always said they were thankful I was alive. If something had happened to me, it would have just been another funeral they had to go through.''

Collins was off work for several months and then put into an administrative position for four years.

'I could still do it.'

Days after the shootings, Collins' father was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer. He died one month and one day after the shootings. His mother died the following March.

Collins lost his house, got divorced and moved with two of his four children into an apartment.

"I said after the shooting it couldn't get much worse than that, and it did,'' Collins said in 2005. "I don't say, 'How much more?' anymore, because then I find out."

The first few years were a struggle. "I don't like to use the term PTSD, but there were a lot of sleepless nights,'' he said. "I still can't sleep."

Two trials were held for Kerry Spencer, the confessed shooter, and Nathaniel Woods in 2005.

"Kerry Spencer was guilty. I just had to make sure I didn't make a mistake. On Nathaniel's, I had to show the jury what he did because he didn't pull the trigger. Granted, at the end, he showed it himself," Collins said.

"I still to this day have more anger for Nathaniel Woods than I do Kerry Spencer because I believe he's the one that planned it. It was his idea. He was the catalyst that caused it all. It would have never happened without him."

Some questioned whether they were overzealous cops, four white officers harassing two black men.

"There's still people who think we did something wrong. No, it was a normal misdemeanor arrest at a drug house. That was not unusual," Collins said.

"They died trying to stop crack from being sold in the neighborhood."

Spencer and Woods were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Both remain on death row at Holman Prison.

About that time, Collins patrolled a football game for extra pay. It was the first time back in uniform, and back in a police cruiser.

"I tried to climb back out," he said. "I had a big breakdown. Maybe it was the realization that I might not be doing what I'd been doing all my life, that I might not make it back."

"I was gone,'' he said. "I was drained. I had nothing left to give."

Part of the turning point came in 2006 when the city sent him to an occupational health doctor at UAB.

"He mostly listened, but he would say, 'What could you have done?''' Collins said. "I finally believed there was nothing I could have done but get shot."

He remembers the day he turned the corner. It was Oct. 23, 2006, the day his close friend, Fairfield Police Officer Mary Smith, was shot to death during a traffic stop.

"I was coming out of the doctor's office feeling good and then I saw the parade of police cars and ambulances pull up. I called and said, 'Who is it?'"

He and Smith had worked together in Birmingham's West Precinct. "I had just spoken at her retirement party,'' Collins said. "That's why I haven't spoken at any retirement parties since. I know that's crazy."

Despite that tragedy, Collins continued to heal.

In 2008, he met his wife, Allyson. "I told my wife when I met her, 'My kids kept me alive; you taught me how to live again,' he said.

Collins was promoted to sergeant in 2009 and went back to patrol.

"I was a little cautious at first,'' he said. He was assigned to the North Precinct, then to the overnight shift at the South Precinct. After that, he became the supervisor of the South Precinct task force, and now is the day shift sergeant.

"It was good to get back out and prove to the officers that I could still do it, and prove to myself that I could still do it," Collins said.

He said his experience helps him relate to victims.

"Part of the breakdown was the years of seeing people killed, the bodies, and I had locked it away,'' he said. "Now I can't detach myself from it. Now the victims touch me a little more because I've been one."

Collins said he thinks about the shooting several times a week, and occasionally stops at the gravesites.

Memories pop into his mind at unexpected times, like the first time he watched his daughter catch a fly ball, and when he saw her graduate from high school.

"I'm getting to watch this and they aren't,'' Collins said. "I shouldn't be here. I was given a blessing to be able to watch this."