“I knew what I had just witnessed. My daughter’s lifeless body.”
It’s the nightmare no mother wants to experience – yet, unfortunately for Jamie Lynn Spears, it became a horrifying reality six years ago. In February 2017, Britney’s sister, 32, and her daughter Maddie – who is now 15 – had been at her husband Jamie Watson’s parents’ house when Maddie went for a drive on a quad bike. The vehicle had ended up in the pond on the property, while Maddie had been strapped in.
Opening up about the traumatic ordeal, Jamie Lynn recalls the moment she believed her daughter had died. Thankfully, Maddie was able to fully recover and suffered no brain damage.
“The first responder got in the water just as the ATV was dragged from the pond. He lifted Maddie out and laid her down next to me. She was unconscious, her body distended, face swollen and eerily blue,” Jamie Lynn says in her memoir Things I Should Have Said. “The EMT started CPR. Nothing was working — not the compressions or the forced influx of air. No response. Wordlessly the EMT grabbed her lifeless body, flipped it over and began pounding on her back. I knew what I had just witnessed. My daughter’s lifeless body.
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“Momma was in California. I heard Ms. Holly [her husband Jamie Watson’s mother] say, ‘Lynne, Maddie’s not with us anymore.’ I was eviscerated by the sadness as tears streamed down my face. I rose. My baby was in the ambulance. The engine started and before I knew what was happening, the truck sped down the road. One of the firemen said, ‘They got a pulse.'”
Maddie was intubated at the hospital, with Jamie Lynn remember that there were “no fewer than five machines performing different functions”. A doctor went on to tell her that Maddie’s scans didn’t show any damage or injury but that the next 24 hours would be crucial and tell them more.
Jamie Lynn ensured that she had a man of the church brought in for a prayer circle and they all recited the Commendation of the Dying. At the time, she hadn’t realised that he had been performing last rites. When he annointed her head with oil and said “Holy Spirit”, Jamie Lynn insists that Maddie began to thrash, leading herself to scream.
Opening up about how difficult it had been to write about the event in her book, Jamie Lynn said: “The hardest chapter to write and to read is the one about the accident. It has a wonderful ending, but you can’t help, every time you’re reading it, to go back to that… It’s still hard to even talk about it.”
Jamie Lynn, who is mum to Maddie and Joan, five, is currently taking part in this year’s I’m A Celebrity and has spoken about her struggle being away from her daughters. “Why am I crying so much?” She previously asked her campmates. “Josie has a baby at home…” While Sam Thompson responded: “It’s important to remember you’ve come from a whole different continent, you don’t know anyone here, it’s hard. It’s real hard.”
While EastEnders actress Danielle Harold added: “Look at the s— you’ve been through in your life, right? This, a little bit of rain in the jungle, is nothing.” In response, Jamie Lynn said: “But at least all that s— I could go home to my babies every night, you know? That’s it, that’s all I need in life. It feels a little bit overwhelming. They’re not even close,” Spears tells her two companions. “I’ve got to just do it. I don’t know why I’m being such a baby.”
