You have been hurt, and somewhere in the middle of everything else you are being asked to work out what to buy. That is a lot to ask of anyone in week one.
Hurt Square makes two things that work as a pair. A national guide holds your daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs anywhere in Canada. A provincial Companion Guide holds the deadlines, forms and appeal routes for your jurisdiction. There are two national guides, one for motor vehicle collisions and one for workplace injuries, and Companion Guides covering all thirteen jurisdictions. Most people need one of each.
A Companion Guide is a structured plain-language document that holds the record of your recovery, your claim and your rights in one place. This page explains what the pieces are called and how they fit together, and it is worth four minutes before you look at anything in the shop.
What does Hurt Square make?
Hurt Square makes recovery documentation for injured Canadians. Not an app, not software, not a service you subscribe to.
They are digital and arrive as an instant download after purchase. Fields are fillable on a device, and every guide prints cleanly if you would rather write by hand. They are yours to keep and to return to at your own pace. Nothing expires and nothing renews.
What are the guides called?
Two families, named differently on purpose.
National guides carry no series name. There are two. The National MVA Recovery Guide is for motor vehicle collisions. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide is for injuries at work. Each one holds the record that applies anywhere in Canada, meaning symptoms, appointments, calls, costs, time away from work and the emotional side of recovery.
Provincial guides are called Companion Guides and each carries a series name. After the Crash is the motor vehicle series. The Way Back is the workplace injury series. Individual editions are named by jurisdiction and line, so a reader in Ontario needs either the Ontario MVA Companion Guide or the Ontario Workplace Injury Companion Guide depending on how they were hurt.
How do the two parts work together?
The national guide holds the record. The Companion Guide holds the rules.
That split exists because injury systems are provincial. Accident benefits in Ontario do not work like Enhanced Care in British Columbia. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in Ontario does not work like WorkSafeBC. Deadlines, forms, appeal bodies and even whether you keep the right to sue all change at a provincial border.
Each part fails on its own in a predictable way. A national guide by itself gives you a careful daily record and no warning that a form was due three weeks ago. A Companion Guide by itself gives you every deadline and nothing to file against them. Together they cover both halves of the same problem, which is why most people use both.
Which injuries and which provinces are covered?
Two tracks. Motor vehicle collisions and workplace injuries. They are kept separate throughout, because the systems behind them share almost nothing beyond the fact that you are hurt.
Coverage differs a little between the two lines. The After the Crash motor vehicle series covers all ten provinces, with Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut served by a single combined Territories edition. The Way Back workplace series has a separate edition for each of the thirteen jurisdictions, including one each for Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
What are the Trackers?
Trackers are single-purpose companions to the guides, for people who want to go deeper on one part of the record than a general guide allows. Each one does a single job thoroughly.
- Pain and symptoms
- Physiotherapy and rehabilitation
- Medical appointments
- Medication
- Mileage and expenses
- Claim correspondence
- Return to work
The Pain and Symptom Tracker and the Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Tracker each have a free starter edition, so you can see how the approach works before spending anything.
Who are the guides built for?
If you were in a collision, the guides apply whether you were driving, riding as a passenger, cycling or walking, and whether or not you were found at fault.
If you were hurt at work, they apply regardless of your industry, your job title or how cooperative your employer has been.
If the injury happened yesterday or eight months ago, there is a place to start. Nothing in the guides is tied to a particular week of recovery. They begin wherever you are.
Why does documentation matter?
Because every system you are about to deal with runs on the written record. Insurance, workers' compensation, medical care and the legal process all decide from documents rather than from impressions.
What is written down is what is real to those systems. An injury nobody recorded can be treated as though it did not happen. A telephone call nobody noted can be denied. A symptom you never described cannot be compensated. None of that is fair. All of it is how the process actually works.
Hurt Square makes that part manageable, organized and yours.
Built for injured people.
Find the guide built for your situation
Start with the national guide for your type of injury, then add the Companion Guide for the province or territory where it happened.
Read next
- What to Do After a Car Accident in Canada
- What to Do After a Workplace Injury in Canada
- How to Document Injuries After a Car Accident
Last verified August 2026. Hurt Square Companion Guides are tools for documenting your own recovery. They are not legal, medical or insurance advice.