I used wife's X5 to pull a guy out of a ditch who went off on a tangent of a curve on a frictionless road.
The road: fun scenic drive between tower road and Willow roads about a mile East of Edens in Chicagoland.
Close up
Bird's eye view of the path the car took
North up view of the path of the disabled car (red) and the path I took to help the family out (4 large adults and a baby in a car seat)
By large I mean 1100-1200# between the four of them.
The field was about 2.5 meters below the level of the road but the bigger problem other than 5-6" deep slushy snow (above freezing temps for two days) was that he tried to use momentum to drive back up onto the road where it was twice as steep as where he went in..
He dug some serious ruts into the snowbank down to grass.
I didn't have my car (with tow hooks tow chain tow ball etc) I had wife's car with almost nothing didn't even have her tow hook I have to track that down.
I did have a crappy jumper cable so I peeled the two sides apart, tied them into my front control arm and his rear axle and tugged him backwards until he was pointing back the way he came in.
Then I used a folded up sun screen to protect our bumpers and gave him a shove.
Before I pushed him I drove up and down the track to give him a packed snow trail.
It worked like a charm other than the make shift tow cable breaking a few times as the clamps popped off or the knot came undone.
I've got to get a tow strap for wife's car and find her tow hook.
The car performed amazingly on the slushy 6" deep snow in the rough of a golf course. The only wheel spin was when I was trying to gently tug on the car. (So as to not snap the cable)
Before I hooked on I drove back n forth in the arc I planned to pull him about 4 times to pack down the snow. That was very helpful I didn't spin the wheels after that.
A cop saw the action early on and stopped thinking with two cars down in the ditch it was an accident.
I explained the other guy didn't mean to be in the ditch but I drove down in purpose to pull the guy out. Another guy stopped to help he had a collapsible shovel which came in very handy he also had a tow rope but we didn't end up needing it.
The family got on their way, about an hour later than planned but $150-200 left in their pockets so they didn't end up spending their entire going out for Chicago supper budget on a tow truck.
I got to drive my wife's X5 down into a ditch on a golf course rough so that was better then a day at an amusement park to me!