<P> The chronics are patients who will never be cured . Many of the chronics are elderly and / or in vegetative states . </P> <Ul> <Li> Ruckly: A hell - raising patient who challenges the rules until the Big Nurse authorizes his lobotomy . After the lobotomy, he sits and stares at a picture of his wife, and occasionally screams profanities . </Li> <Li> Ellis: Ellis was put in a vegetative state by electroshock therapy . He stands against the wall in a disturbing messianic position with arms outstretched . </Li> <Li> Pete Bancini: Bancini suffered brain damage at birth but managed to hold down simple jobs, such as a switch operator on a lightly - used railroad branch line, until the switches were automated and he lost his job, after which he was institutionalized . The Chief remembers how once, and only once, he lashed out violently against the aides, telling the other patients that he was a living miscarriage, born dead . </Li> <Li> Rawler: A patient on the Disturbed ward, above the main ward, who says nothing but "loo, loo, loo!" all day and tries to run up the walls . One night, Rawler castrates himself while sitting on the toilet and bleeds to death before anyone realizes what he has done . </Li> <Li> Old Blastic: An old patient who is in a vegetative state . The first night McMurphy is in the ward, Bromden dreams Blastic is hung by his heel and sliced open, spilling his rusty visceral matter . The next morning, Bromden learns Blastic died during the night . </Li> <Li> The Lifeguard: An ex-professional football player, he still has the cleat marks on his forehead from the injury that scrambled his brains . He explains to McMurphy, unlike prison, patients are kept in the hospital as long as the staff desires . It is this conversation that causes McMurphy to fall in line for a time . </Li> <Li> Colonel Matterson: The oldest patient in the ward, he suffers from severe senile dementia and cannot move without a wheelchair . He is a veteran of the First World War, and spends his days "explaining" objects through metaphor . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Ruckly: A hell - raising patient who challenges the rules until the Big Nurse authorizes his lobotomy . After the lobotomy, he sits and stares at a picture of his wife, and occasionally screams profanities . </Li> <Li> Ellis: Ellis was put in a vegetative state by electroshock therapy . He stands against the wall in a disturbing messianic position with arms outstretched . </Li>

One travels east one travels west one flew over the cuckoos nest