A 45-year-old Yass man was killed while working at a building site in west Macgregor yesterday.
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A road grader, used to give a final finish on roads, reversed over the man, whose name has not been made public, while he was working for Canberra Contractors on a Village Building Company project.
His workmates attempted first aid, but CFMEU ACT secretary Dean Hall suspected the man was killed instantly.
ACT Policing and Worksafe ACT were called to the Macgregor site about 2pm, shortly after the incident.
The accident left the man's wife, two children and colleagues ''shattered'' and ''distraught''.
''Their lives have changed forever,'' Mr Hall said.
Counsellors were on site for most of yesterday afternoon and Mr Hall said people were ''very shaken up'' by the ordeal.
''We haven't had a fatality on a building site for quite a few years,'' Mr Hall said.
''He was a very well-liked person, a good person and a friend to many.
''He was the union delegate for the company as well.'' Union representatives will be holding stopwork meetings around Canberra today to inform workers of the accident. They will also be asking people to donate money to the deceased man's family.
ACT Policing and Worksafe ACT are investigating the death to determine the cause of the accident. Police are preparing a report for the coroner.
WorkSafe commissioner Mark McCabe said police had control of the scene of the incident for most of the afternoon.
''We've been identifying witnesses, identifying equipment, basically doing the preliminaries for a more complete investigation,'' Mr McCabe said.