extricate

To extricate somebody is to free them from a tangle or a difficulty. Getting them out, usually with effort.

It is often reflexive, so extricating yourself from a conversation is a small social skill everybody needs. The physical sense belongs to rescue work, where firefighters extricate people from vehicles, and extrication is a technical term with its own equipment. It takes from. The word is formal and it always implies that getting out was not straightforward. Its root means to free from difficulties, and the opposite, intricate, means tangled up.