The Oct. 15 episode of “Dancing With the Stars” was “Dedication Night,” which meant the tears were already flowing… and then Derek Hough and his wife Hayley Erbert spoke up.

The married duo celebrated her return to the ballroom with an emotional routine to Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” marking Erbert’s first return after her emergency craniectomy.

Before the routine, the “DWTS” judge explained that just three months after the two got married in August 2023, while the couple was on their joint Symphony of Dance tour, their lives “came to a standstill in the most devastating way.” ”

“I was on stage and she would come out. The stage manager walked out and just said, “Hey, she’s not coming on stage.” She was standing on the side of the stage and was having full-blown seizures and was essentially dying. It’s really hard to even put it into words, other than sheer fear,” the longtime pro judge said, airing Tuesday night.

Erbert was rushed to the hospital for an emergency brain hematoma.

“The doctor came to me and said, ‘She has a severe brain bleed, so we have to operate now,’” Hough said, choking back tears. “He said she might not make it and that even if she did, she wouldn’t be the same person. They told me you actually lost the person you knew… I remember lying on the floor of the hospital begging. I thought: please don’t go.”

He said she was ‘unrecognizable’ the next morning and was missing 40% of her skull. However, she remembered the couple dancing before she ended up in the hospital, and he was so relieved to have his wife back.

After the couple performed on the latest “DWTS” episode, Hough shared that the couple was actually able to dance on stage in front of doctors and nurses in Washington, DC, after her recovery.

“Afterwards, the doctors came to us and said, ‘Hey Derek, this is a miracle.’ And I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ He said, ‘No, Derek, this is a miracle,'” Hough said Tuesday night. “He really felt the weight of how remarkable this woman is and her determination and her spirit. You inspire me so much. She is incredible.”