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An eastern Iowa community is grieving an 18-year-old college student who local officials believe died after exposure to the subzero temperatures pervading the Midwest.

Gerald Belz was a first-year student from Cedar Rapids on the pre-medicine track at the University of Iowa. The circumstances surrounding his death remain murky, but university police said they found the freshman unresponsive near a campus building just before 3 a.m. Wednesday. He later died at a hospital.

Police do not suspect foul play and think Belz's death was linked to the extreme cold in Iowa that morning, the university said in a statement. Temperatures were minus-21 degrees with a wind chill of minus-55 at the time Belz was found, according to data from the National Weather Service. Historically cold weather across the Midwest has been linked to at least seven deaths in recent days, a number that will likely continue to climb.

"[He was] quiet but tough, but he was a very compassionate individual," Gerald's father, Michael Belz, told NBC affiliate KWWL, adding that his son aspired to be a cardiologist or a neurosurgeon. Michael Belz also described his son as a "mama's boy with a tough exterior," according to ABC affiliate KCRG.