9:14am UK, Friday March 19, 2004

A horror tour at the Edinburgh Dungeons went comically wrong when an actress playing a vampire fainted at the sight of blood.

Marianne Sellar was about to bite into a victim planted in the crowd when a foreign student tapped her on the shoulder saying she had a nosebleed.

How was the tour? Bleeding awful

Revealing her act to be as fake as her teeth, Ms Sellar collapsed.

The 24-year-old is now doing a different job at the popular Scottish tourist attraction having admitted to the management she has suffered a life-long phobia of blood.

Ms Sellar told the Daily Mail newspaper: "It is quite embarrassing.

"I had managed to keep my phobia a secret for three years because normally we only deal with fake blood which I can handle.

"When the visitor showed me all the real blood I just collapsed."

A new actress is being trainned up to fill Ms Sellar's role in the Dungeons' feature tour Vampires: Fact Or Fiction?