Jamie Lynn Spears emotionally recalls daughter Maddie's near-death accident

It's been more than three years since Jamie Lynn Spears' daughter, Maddie, had a near-death ATV accident in February 2017 -- but it's a day her mother will certainly never forget.

The "Zoey 101" star opened up about one of the most emotional experiences of her life on Thursday's episode of Maria Menounos' "Better Together" podcast.

Thinking back to the frightening day, Spears noted that, despite "every safety measure that could be taken," Maddie, now 11, "somehow or another drove into the water."

"We thought she was gone," the 29-year-old admitted, recalling Maddie's status after being rescued from the water and attended to by first responders. "We thought we lost our daughter."

"There's nothing worse than looking at your child and just feeling that you've failed her," she continued. "And I didn't want her to think that I couldn't save her."

One firefighter eventually got a pulse, but "she wasn't responding to anything and so it was not looking good for us." Anticipating a "worst-case scenario," Spears and husband Jamie Watson -- with whom she also shares daughter Ivey, 2 -- asked for a priest to come pray for her in the ICU.

"He went to put the oil on her head and read the [last] rites and she sat up and started kicking, and her hands started grabbing at all the things," the singer added. "That was our first sign that she was there."

Spears has opted to look at the positive instead of dwelling on the negative. Over the last few years, the mom of two said "everything changed" for her as a parent.

"God gave me the blessing of giving me my daughter back. I lost her and I got her back," she concluded. "So I don't get to make any excuses. I've been given the best, biggest blessing you can be given. I'm not allowed to waste a day on this earth complaining or being ungrateful."