A Tidioute woman will spend the next eight months in jail on child endangerment charges stemming from the drowning death of her 2-year-old child.

Judge Gregory Hammond sentenced Patti Jo Vargason, 40, on Friday afternoon.

Chief Public Defender Kord Kinney presented letters to the court that, he said, “characterize” how this “tragedy” has impacted Vargason and her family.

“Ms. Varsgason takes responsibility ultimately,” he said. “To take care of her kids, she’s got to be taking care of herself.”

He asked for a probation sentence.

Troopers say in the affidavit of probable cause that a call was forwarded to them from Vargason last August via the 911 Center and, during that call, she told police she believed her daughter was in the river and could not be located. Several troopers responded.

Once on scene, troopers spent several minutes walking down the riverbank but did not locate the missing child. They found the river “very high and muddy from the amount of rain received several days prior to this incident,” police said in the affidavit.

An investigator returned to the residence and spoke with Vargason. Police learned that one of Vargason’s sons, a 5-year-old, had been with the child that drowned “at the time and at the exact location” she entered the river. That child led troopers to that location.

Search efforts involved the state police, a state police helicopter, Tidioute, Tionesta, and Hickory volunteer fire departments, McKean County Tracking Canine, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the McKean County Special Operations Group Dive Team, and numerous individuals.

The outflow at Kinzua Dam was reportedly reduced dramatically to facilitate the search. A tracking dog was used to follow the child’s scent

The 2-year-old’s body was located in a debris pile a mile south from where she was believed to have fallen into the river the following day.

On Friday, First Assistant District Attorney Cody Brown said he had no objection to house arrest.

Hammond disagreed with them both.

He started his remarks by conveying his “deepest sympathies” to those affected by the loss of a “beautiful 2-year-old girl.”

He called it a “horrible tragedy” that also was “completely preventable.”

Hammond stressed that the plea was to knowing conduct that endangered the child, not reckless or negligent conduct. He told Vargason he wasn’t sentencing her because this was an accident or because another child may have opened a gate.

He said he was “being asked to mitigate” conduct that “resulted in death” of the child. “I simply can’t do that.”

He then sentenced Vargason to eight months to two years less one day incarceration, $250 in fees, compliance with Children and Youth Services and drug and alcohol treatment recommendations, work release eligibility and early reentry, submission of a DNA sample, two years probation and 50 hours of community service on a count of endangering the welfare of a child.