An 8-year-old Vicksburg boy drowned Saturday on a lake in Claiborne Parish, La., near Homer, officials said

Carson Brayden Lynn, a rising third-grader at Porters Chapel Academy who had been flooded out of his Vicksburg home on LeTourneau Road with his father, Billy Lynn, had been playing on a pier near a friend’s boat minutes before being found in Lake Claiborne, said his stepfather, Joe Nunn, who, along with Brayden’s mother, Beverly Nunn, was on the boat.

The group was packing the boat for an outing to Snake Island, a land mass in the state-owned lake, Joe Nunn said.

“We were loading tents and ice chests, and charging the barge’s battery,” Nunn said. “The barge was still in the (boat) lift. It was barely touching the water.”

He said Brayden and his 15-year-old cousin decided to go swimming and play with their water guns, adding that he saw Brayden standing in shallow water near the pier.

A few minutes later, at about 2:30 p.m., Nunn said, the group was ready to leave and Brayden’s mother called for him. When Brayden didn’t respond, several of the adults and the cousin began looking for him.

Nunn said he and several others went into the water to look for the boy, adding that Brayden’s mother jumped in the water behind the boat and found her son.

The boy was given CPR and tranferred to Homer Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a few minutes later, his stepfather said.

Claiborne Parish Sheriff’s Chief of Detectives Charles Buford said this morning that an autopsy was being performed in Little Rock, Ark., but his office was treating the death as a drowning and the investigation was continuing.

Brayden, and his only sibling, 14-year-old Brandon, had not returned to their home since the Mississippi River flood over the past two months, said his cousin Georgia Lynn, executive director of the Vicksburg-Warren Humane Society.

“They kept their dogs at the humane society while the water was up,” Georgia Lynn said. “He was a very sweet little boy. He was very concerned and conscientious about his animals, and got his grandmother to drive him to the shelter so he could walk and play with his dogs. He loved animals.”

“He was a sweet boy,” she said. “For his age, he was a very responsible person and understood the needs of his animals.”

Brayden’s grandmother Mary Lou Lynn of Vicksburg this morning described him as a child who “loved to hut and fish with his father.”

“He loved everybody, everybody loved him and he loved to play tricks on people,” she said.

Glenwood Funeral Home of Vicksburg was in charge of arrangements.