How do trigger animations work..

I've read that trigger values in a dsq is used to tell torque when to play the footstep sound.
my question is where in torque is this handled (scripting or engine code)?

if my guess is right, our team will use this differently: let's say i have a character that will attack his opponent, which will hit. now torque has to know when the opponent will play its 'getting hurt' animation. it shouldn't be too early, or too late, which will look stupid. so we'll put a trigger value at the character's attack animation, specifically at the moment of impact, and modify torque to detect that trigger and instead of playing the footstep sound (as how it is currently used), it will tell the opponent to play its 'getting hurt' animation.
we'll also need to know how to tell the opponent to play its 'getting hurt' animation. this is something with what torque calls 'threads' right?

thanks