A YOUNG woman has described her terror after a tenement staircase collapsed beneath her.

Victoria Steele, 19, was only saved from falling on to the stone steps below when a bag she was carrying became stuck.

She was climbing the stairs to her top floor flat in La Crosse Terrace when the ground gave way.

As reported in last night's Evening Times, residents were trapped for nine hours in the tenement block in Kelvinbridge after the steps were found to be dangerous.

The Glasgow University student who is studying Theatre, Film and Television, said she and her neighbours were forced to escape through her third-floor living room window.

With the help of firefighters, two women and one man were lifted to safety on a high-reach aerial rescue pump at 11.25am - nine hours after the collapse was reported at 2.25am - when the stairs were deemed too dangerous to be used.

Today, Victoria told the Evening Times, the experience had been the scariest thing that had ever happened to her. She said: "I had gone up the first and second flight of stairs and then on the third flight, the step collapsed.

"I just stepped on and I had both feet on the step and it fell away.

"I had a luggage bag in my hand and I was holding my keys in my other hand.

"I remember my legs dangling through the hole.

"I hauled myself up and broke down because I couldn't believe I had managed to get myself out.

"It was the scariest thing that has happened to me in my life."

Although it was 2.15am, the sound of the falling step smashing on the staircase 13 feet below, woke the other residents, who came to help Victoria.

She phoned her parents, Robert, 61, and Louise, 53, who were on holiday in Fife, and they contacted emergency services.

Victoria said the fire service arrived within five minutes and instructed her and the other residents to return to their flats. She spent the night alone and terrified.

In the morning, residents had to be evacuated through the windows and are now waiting to find out when they can return.

A spokesman from Glasgow City Council said people would be allowed to return once necessary repairs had been made.

Owners and the building factor, McFie and Company, who declined to comment, will be responsible for making the repairs.

matty.sutton@eveningtimes.co.uk