Truck Stuck in Mud and Flooring Time?

People loved the truck at work. It was a rear-wheel drive pick-up, company owned, and painted a bright color. Very roomy, but very unnecessary for what the people in my office loved taking it to do. The vehicle was basically used as an appliance to go from the office to another location, sometimes parked on the side of the road in the country or on highways. I, myself, felt safer sitting in it as a passenger, maybe the others thought the same.

Too bad that everyone I shared that truck as a passenger in drove more compact sedans as personal vehicles. What could possibly go wrong when people, who aren't used to driving longer and higher vehicles with the power on the opposite end, decide to drive such vehicles?

Bottomed Out
One person decided to try a three-point turn on a narrow, country road. The truck decided not to go any further when it was backed into a ditch and bottomed out. Something about the wheels not making any contact with the ground that the tires didn't like. The driver thought that flooring the gas pedal would somehow produce traction in open air. I thought his initial decision to floor it when the truck first bottomed out was made out of sheer panic -- his face just spelled fear. Then he kept flooring it and the air outside the vehicle became filled with exhaust. It took me having to tell him to take his foot off the gas for him to actually stop. A passing motorist helped to push it out of the ditch shortly after I got out to check the damage.

Stuck in the Mud
Another person parked the vehicle on a wet, gravel surface in an open field. This seemed innocent enough. After finishing doing whatever we had to, the truck didn't want to go anywhere when the gas pedal was mashed. After a few minutes of flooring the gas pedal, it was somehow a surprise that the car didn't want to go anywhere. The rear wheels did create nice couple inch deep craters on both sides though. It became clear after a brief conversation about our predicament that the only solution the driver had was to keep flooring it. Seeing the exterior of the car fill with exhaust wasn't encouraging.

Not to toot my own horn, but I managed to help get the truck unstuck thanks to the abhorrent amount of television I consumed up to that point. Never driven a pick-up truck, never gotten a car stuck in anything -- due to luck and low mileage. Television seems to love talking about what to do when a wheel gets stuck in the mud or snow. Thank you TV?