Jamie Lynn Spears emotionally opened up about her eldest daughter Maddie’s near-death experience on Monday night’s installment of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!

The younger sister of Britney, 32, spoke to her fellow campmates about the traumatic ordeal which took place in February 2017 when Maddie was just eight years old.

In the incident, Maddie was riding an ATV near a pond on the family’s Louisiana property when she tried to steer away from a drainage ditch.

According to a police report, she ‘overcorrected’ and ended up in the pond – still secured by her seatbelt and trapped to the ATV.

She spent two minutes submerged under the water while Jamie was just 100 yards away – before being airlifted to hospital, where her mother asked a priest to read her last rites.

Tearful: Jamie Lynn Spears emotionally opened up about her eldest daughter Maddie’s near death experience on Monday night’s installment of I’m A Celebrity

Three years on: Jamie Lynn Spears took to social media to reflect on the three year anniversary since her daughter Maddie’s near death experience following an ATV freak accident

All is good: Both mom Jamie and step-dad Jamie tried to save Maddie and get her out of the flipped ATV but couldn’t (family photo with other daughter Ivey in 2019)

As the campmates sat around the fireplace, Jamie Lynn recounted the horrific ordeal as she struggled to hold back tears.

She said: ‘I almost lost my oldest daughter… she drowned and we couldn’t save her.

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‘We tried really hard. She was trapped under a little side-by-side that we ride around our pond.

‘This is in 2017. She was 8 or 9 or something like that. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law, me and my husband, we run to jump in to save her.

‘In that moment you think: “This is not real, she’s going to pop up, this isn’t real.”‘

Maddie was ultimately freed by EMTs and brought to the hospital in stable but critical condition – after Jamie and her husband Jamie Watson desperately tried to save her but couldn’t get her out of the safety belt.

Jamie continued: ‘I could feel her arm, and I’m jerking it, I couldn’t get her up because it’s a pretty heavy machine.

‘In that moment you think, you know logically she’s been under water too long… nobody can live if they’ve been under water this long. You logically are thinking these things.

Explanation: Jamie Lynn recalled the freak accident, which happened in February 2018 when Maddie was just eight years old

Sweet: Jamie was comforted by her fellow campmates, including JLS’ Marvin Humes

Everything changed: Maddie was in a coma for two days after nearly drowning – but was able to leave hospital six days later

‘Then you hear the sirens coming. Thank god my mother-in-law, first thing she did was call 911… she was caught in the safety netting. So when they got there, she was not alive. They took her from me and they incubated her.’

Describing her own experience, she said: ‘I was sitting on the rocks, I’d thrown up on myself, the adrenalin, then I heard her [my mother-in-law] call my mum and say, “Lynn, we’ve lost Maddie”.

‘Then the fire fighter came over three seconds later and was like, “We’ve got a pulse, we’ve got a pulse..”‘

‘They airlifted her… she’s hooked up on life support, breathing machines and all that… they come in, a priest to read her her last rites, and when they did, her body physically sat up, her spirit responded to it for whatever reason… ‘

Maddie finally regained consciousness and was surrounded by family who stayed by her hospital bed following the accident.

She was able to leave the hospital six days after the first fell into the pond – and the now 15-year-old has since been able to enjoy a perfectly normal life with no repercussions.

Jamie added: ‘She got better and better every day and walked out of the hospital. This has no repercussions.

‘So that’s when I became Catholic. For about five minutes I thought I’d lost my daughter and then I was given the miracle of having her back.’

Accident: Maddie’s accident when she was driving  her 7th birthday present, a Polaris ATV, and swerved to avoid a drainage ditch. Her ride then flipped into a pond

Jamie Lynn admitted: ‘My biggest fear was she was going to die thinking her momma wasn’t trying to save her.’

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The ATV is thought to have been given to Britney Spears niece for her 7th birthday – despite the website saying it was only suitable for those aged 10 and over.

Jamie has been married to business Jamie Watson since 2014, and the couple also share daughter Ivey, born in 2018.

Jamie was only 16 when she became pregnant with Maddie by her former boyfriend Casey Aldridge.

In 2020, Jamie Lynn commemorated the three-year anniversary of Maddie’s accident with an emotional Instagram post.

‘[The day] started like most Sunday’s, going to church, visiting family, to suddenly trying to save my daughters life, to them taking her away, to us believing we had lost her forever, and it literally felt like the world stood still around me,’ she wrote.

The former All That actress went on to describe Maddie’s full recovery as a ‘miracle.’

Britney herself posted a plea for ‘wishes and prayers’ on Twitter after the accident and confirmed her niece was improving in a follow up tweet.

‘We are so grateful to share that Maddie is making progress. Thank you all for sending thoughts and prayers out way. Let’s all keep praying,’ she wrote.