A 74-year-old Ozawkie man died Thursday afternoon in a west Lawrence construction accident after being crushed by an earth-moving machine weighing several tons.

The machine, commonly called a scraper, backed over Ivan Pippert while he was doing maintenance work. The scraper, used to level ground, was among several bulldozers, dump trucks and other pieces of heavy equipment at the site Thursday on Biltmore Drive.

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No information was available about who was controlling the machine, and Lawrence Police Sgt. Catherine Born said no foul play was suspected in Pippert’s death.

Pippert was an employee of Foley Construction Co. of Lawrence, which broke ground only two days ago on the half-acre piece of land, said Curt Kastl, whose plumbing company is across the street. Only a knee-high pile of two-by-fours and wooden stakes marked where a U.S. Department of Agriculture building is going to be built next to the Lawrence Gymnastics Academy, near the intersection of Wakarusa and Legends drives.

About six Foley workers comforted each other on the muddied land where the accident happened about 3 p.m.

No one from Foley or the project’s general contractor, Vermaas Construction in Lincoln, Neb., was available for comment Thursday evening.