The best advice I can give is to focus on sensory details. Don't just say you were scared; describe the cold sweat, the pounding heart, the taste of metal in your mouth. Ground the reader in the moment. Also, don't be afraid of the small, seemingly insignificant details. Sometimes, those are the things that truly bring a memory to life. Speaking of distracting myself from serious writing, I often play the Dinosaur Game on Chrome when I'm stuck. It helps clear my head!
That's a great point about distinguishing between detectors! I once spent ages trying to find a lost set of keys in my garden with a borrowed metal detector, and it picked up everything except the keys because they were made of something different. It was frustrating! Maybe I needed something specifically tuned for ferrous metals. If you're into this kind of thing, you should try the game Drift Hunters! It's oddly satisfying in a completely different way.