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Your resident licensed counsellor is probably a nice person, but doesn't know a lot about dealing with traumatic stress ...
First off, your dad does not have PTSD, or even "acute" PTSD (there's no such thing as acute PTSD, incidentally). Post Traumatic Stress Disorder develops over a period of months. To be classified as a disorder there have to be significant impairments in a person's ability to function.
Don't decide your dad is sicker than he is.
He's not mentally ill.
He's seen some bad shit.
There's no need to pathologize him.
Your dad is experiencing the NORMAL reactions of a NORMAL person when exposed to an ABNORMAL situation.
In the first 24-48 hours, the reactions are just starting to set in. There's a tendency to jump right in and think that things need to be addressed in a particular way, like bringing in the grief counsellor.
Grief counsellors are great, but grief is something you're not even capable of dealing with in the first 24-48 hours. There's a lot of shock, emotions aren't even really processed or sorted out. Head for the grief counsellor in a couple of weeks if there are still some issues.
The licensed counsellor where you are probably knows or heard a little bit about something called "CISM" or Critical Incident Stress Management. That's where the term "debriefing" is used a lot ... but people also misuse that term, leading to a lot of confusion about what is or isn't CISM and whether CISM is useful or harmful. There's a lot of literature on that, so I'll let that discussion go for right now.
I am a Mitchell Model CISM trained debriefer and have been active on a Critical Incident Stress Management Team for 12 years. One of the more important pieces of the process right now relates to eduction ... about normalizing the experience for your dad, finding out what reactions he is having, what he's noticing as changes in himself, or that others notice in him ... you mentioned stuttering. He may have stuttered when he was younger and has been in very strict control of that ... but now, he's overwhelmed and strategies he's used in the past aren't working. He could be irritable, sleepless, less or more hungry, an increase in smoking or drinking wouldn't be unusual.
I would suggest that your dad talk to someone ... not a therapist, though, not at this point. Remember that whole "you're normal" focus? Critical Incident Stress Management Debriefing is a peer driven process. If there isn't someone in your dad's company that's trained, there may be someone else available, or even the CISM team that serves Emergency Services Personnel in that community might be called upon for this kind of industrial accident ... I know that we've gone out and done that kind of defusing and debriefing. If you want to let me know where your dad is, I can look into resources for him (I have them worldwide, not just in the U.S. This is an internationally utilized process).
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