A sailor assigned to the Fort Meade, Maryland-based Cryptologic Warfare Maritime Activity 61 died Nov. 15 after he collapsed during physical readiness testing, according to U.S. Fleet Cyber Command.

Cryptologic Technician — Interpretive 1st Class Trent Fraser, 24, was taken to the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center and pronounced dead around 3:30 p.m., Mavica said.

No cause of death is listed yet. Bruce Goldbarb, a spokesman for the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said Fraser’s death remains under investigation.

According to the Naval Safety Center, Trent Fraser was running on a treadmill at the time of his collapse.

But U.S. Fleet Cyber Command spokesman Steve Mavica could not confirm that to Navy Times on Friday.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our fellow sailor, and our thoughts and prayers go out to Petty Officer Fraser’s family, friends, and shipmates during this extremely difficult time,” Mavica said.

Fraser’s father, Dexter Fraser, remembered when his son mixed up a spicy batch of barbecue sauce for a Memorial Day cookout with family in New York when the sailor was a young teenager. The family is originally from Grenada, a Caribbean country known as the “Spice Isle.”

“He would take every spice we had out of the cupboard,” Dexter Fraser told Navy Times. “Trent’s barbecue sauce was the highlight of that weekend."

Dexter Fraser said he retired from the Navy in 2016 as a gas turbine system technician-mechanical first class.

It took him ten years to earn petty officer first class, he said, but Trent “made it in five. He was very focused.”

Trent Fraser enlisted in the Navy in 2013. He reported to Cryptologic Warfare Maritime Activity 61 in February after attending the Defense Language Institute.

He would have turned 25 on Dec. 9, his father said.

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Although he learned several languages while serving in the Navy, including Farsi, Trent had already demonstrated a knack for picking up foreign tongues in his early teens.

When his father learned he was going to be sent to Japan, his son downloaded programs and began teaching himself Japanese.

“He was crazy for Yo-Gi-Oh, so he was so excited," he said.

Trent was learning French before he died. His family also recently discovered that he had been recording and producing his own music from a studio he’d set up at home. Trent had taught himself to play guitar as a teen, his father said.

Fraser also said his son had sickle cell trait, an inherited blood disorder that affects as many as three million Americans, perhaps up to 10 percent of African Americans, according to the American Society of Hematology.

Sickle cell trait was named as a contributing factor in the February death of Seaman Recruit Kierra Evans, who collapsed while running at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, but investigators have not determined if it is linked to Fraser’s death.

Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.

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