An Army paratrooper is scheduled to head back to Fort Bragg, N.C., Friday for next month’s deployment to Iraq – just one day after he was a hit-and-run victim while home on leave.

Kevin M. Balvin Jr., 21, was out for his daily six-mile jog Thursday morning on Route 231 in North Yarmouth when he was hit from behind by a vehicle, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Balvin, a member of the 82nd Airborne, has been in the Army two years and is scheduled to head to Iraq in November.

“Our biggest concern was him being deployed and being injured, and here he is, home before deployment, and he’s hit by one of his own people here and left by the side of road,” said his father, Kevin Balvin Sr. “That’s just a major shock to me and his mother.”

Balvin was running in the same direction as traffic about 6 a.m. near 230 New Gloucester Road when he was hit and knocked to the side of the road, according to the sheriff’s office.

There were no skid marks at the scene. A driver for Sysco Inc. food service company found Balvin, called 911 and administered first aid, the sheriff’s office said.

Balvin remembers nothing of the collision and only recalls coming to as people were trying to help him, his father said. He injured a leg and has cuts over much of his body, his father said, but suffered no broken bones.

Balvin Sr. said his son’s physical conditioning probably spared the 6-foot-1, 185-pound soldier more serious injury.

“If he was like me or one of us, or even thinner, he would have suffered more,” Balvin Sr. said. “He’s a pretty solidly built guy. He jumps out of airplanes at 800 feet.”

That said, his son isn’t comfortable. He has one leg in an immobilizer and “there’s not a part of his body that doesn’t have scrapes,” his father said, noting that the road is under construction and not smooth. “He ate some rocks.”

Balvin Jr., who grew up in North Yarmouth, attended Greely High School and Southern Maine Community College’s fire science program, his father said. He has been a volunteer firefighter for Cumberland since high school.

The family joined with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in appealing for the driver to take responsibility, and for members of the public to provide information if they saw anything.

“If you injure someone, you have to render assistance,” said Balvin Sr., himself an emergency medical technician and firefighter for the past 18 years.

The Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone who might have been in the area to contact it at 893-2810.