How Jamie Lynn Spears' Daughter's ATV Accident Influenced Career

Jamie Lynn Spears Reflects on Motherhood Ahead of Daughter Maddie's High School Graduation

Jamie Lynn Spears' daughter is sharing the ways her near-fatal ATV accident changed the trajectory of her life.

Nine years after she almost died following an ATV crash on her family's property, Maddie Watson detailed how the accident ultimately influenced her career plans.

"Hopefully I'll end up going to medical school and end up being a pediatrician," the 18-year-old told People in an interview published June 20. "That’s what I really want to do."

Jamie Lynn—who shares the teen with her ex Casey Aldridge—praised her daughter's dreams of becoming a doctor. As the Zoey 101 alum put it, Maddie "would be a great pediatrician."

"My daughter's a doctor!" she added of the teen, who will be studying health sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi this fall. "It's really cool. She's giving me something to brag about."

In February 2017, an 8-year-old Maddie was driving an ATV near her family's home in Louisiana when it flipped over into a pond and briefly pinned her underwater.

Looking back at the harrowing incident many years later, Jamie Lynn and her husband Jamie Watson still aren't sure what led to Maddie's sudden turn.

"We were watching her, and we still don't quite know if she was dodging a dog or what it was," she said. "She went in the water and me, my father-in-law and my husband ran as fast as we could to go jump in to get her out, but she was stuck under the ATV."

After Maddie was airlifted to the hospital, she was in a coma for two days. And according to Jamie Lynn, her daughter's state was so dire that a priest was even called in to administer last rites.

"He comes in, and she physically sits up in all her restraints and tubes," Jamie Lynn recalled. "I'm screaming for the doctors, like, ‘Come in here now!' Even the priest was like, 'I've never seen anything like what's happening.'"

"I knew she was in there and felt all of us praying," she added. "We were given a miracle, and I don't take it for granted."

Instagram/Jamie Lynn Spears

And although Maddie can't recall what happened, the near-death incident left its mark.

"I feel like our faith got a lot stronger," she explained. "In the end, I think such a negative experience affected us positively."

As for Jamie Lynn, her daughter's recovery was the "biggest blessing."

While the Nickelodeon alum—also mom to daughter Ivey, 8, with husband Jamie—has made an annual tradition of marking what she calls the "miracle anniversary" of her daughter surviving the crash, Maddie addressed the scary accident for the first time last year.

"I did have an accident," the self-described "injury prone" teen said in an August YouTube video. "I was in a coma and I came back to life, and I’m very blessed."

For a closer look at Jamie Lynn and her family over the years, keep reading...

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