I'm worried about my brother

I haven't seen him in a while and haven't talked to him a lot lately, but from what my mom says, my younger brother is going through a severe depression of some sort. He says he doesn't feel depressed or sad, but he has no motivation and no real will to live. He told me yesterday that he has so much "crap" in his head that he can't think straight. He said he realizes something is wrong, but he doesn't know what and he doesn't understand why that "crap" is in his head. Even his coworkers have been telling him that he seems distracted and preoccupied with something all the time.

He had an accident during work two days ago where he hurt his feet bad. He jumped off something he thought wasn't bad to jump off, but apparently it was a much longer jump/fall than he realized, and he basically landed on his feet. He told me yesterday that he didn't know what he was thinking when he took the jump. He obviously was distracted enough that he didn't realize that it was a bad idea. He may not be able to work for a while now while his feet heal up.

His depression or whatever you want to call it is now dangerous because if he's preoccupied enough to have an accident, who knows what may happen.

When we were growing up, our father made us feel like mental illness was a horrible thing, and he wouldn't let us get help for depression. I still feel like asking for help is a weakness, but I have been able to ignore that because I knew I had no choice. But my brother still seems to feel embarrassed about needing help. I spent a while on the phone yesterday trying to tell him that if he needs to go to a therapist or a doctor for medicine that it's nothing to be ashamed about and he shouldn't feel embarrassed.

I guess it is a good thing though that he realizes that "crap" shouldn't be in his head. He knows something is wrong, so that's good. I just hope we can convince him to get help before it's too late.